Given that I have since seen this described as a "crossroads moment", with yet another city in the Olympic Movement’s traditional West European heartland turning its back on one of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s flagship events, I thought I had better take a closer look at this study.

The 28-page document* turns out to be less negative than might have been expected. However, it trains the most blazing of spotlights on a long-time flaw in the host-city selection process that the IOC, frankly, has got away with for too long and that must be corrected if the bidding concept is to survive in anything like its present - admittedly revamped - format.

First things first: the study does not actually advise cities not to bid, but it does conclude that "for a city and nation to decide to stage the Olympic Games is to decide to take on one of the most costly and financially most risky type of megaproject that exists".

It acknowledges that the Olympic Games knowledge management programme - the Movement’s attempt to transfer expertise from host city to host city so as to avoid continual reinvention of the Olympic wheel - "appears to be successful in reducing cost risk for the Games".

And it suggests that the Rio 2016 Games "appear to be on track to reverse the high expenditures of London 2012 and Sochi 2014".

However - and here’s the rub - having sought to analyse Summer and Winter Games since 1960, the study concludes that "at 156 per cent in real terms, the Olympics have the highest average cost overrun of any type of megaproject.

"Moreover, cost overrun is found in all Games, without exception."

Think about that for a second: these academics from the world’s number one-ranked university have been unable to identify a single Olympic project in more than half-a-century that came in on, let alone under, budget.

That is unacceptable, plain and simple. It was the basis for Raggi’s claim that the Olympics are "a blank cheque signed by host cities".

As the study puts it: "In practice, the bid budget is really more of a down payment than it is a budget, with further instalments to be paid later."

Or as one of the study’s authors, Alexander Budzier, told me: "There is something wrong in terms of how the governance around this is set up."

Happily, there is a solution that readily presents itself, although I cannot see the Movement accepting it unless evaporation of the once plentifully-supplied pool of aspiring Olympic hosts reaches Aral Sea-like proportions.

The way I see it, there are two reasons for the scale of the cost overruns identified by the Oxford study.

And let’s be clear at this point, the scope of the document includes only sports-related costs, not general infrastructure.

One is the unmissable, immovable deadline that comes with an Olympic project; fall behind and you have no choice but to work out ways of catching up - which are usually expensive.

This deadline, though, is also a positive thing, since it can result in much-needed urban infrastructure - that might have been postponed again and again by local politicians obsessed by a four- or five-year electoral cycle - actually getting built.

Provided Olympic blueprints are well thought-through, requiring the construction only of facilities that will genuinely be of use to the city in question for a generation or more, I would argue that is a price worth paying - particularly when the huge marketing value of staging the Games is taken into account.

The other reason lies in the dynamic of the bidding process; namely, there is no incentive that I can think of to include anything other than the most optimistic of cost estimates in your bid book.

And, since host cities and Governments are generally required to guarantee that they will cover any overruns from these initial budgets, there is little incentive for the IOC to scrutinise them carefully enough at that stage to ascertain if they are realistic, although the altered bidding process applying to the 2024 race might lead to the numbers being pored over with more care.

The Oxford study takes London 2012 to task over the handling of a cost overrun it calculates in real terms at 76 per cent.

"Unfortunately, Olympics officials and hosts often misinform about the costs and cost overruns of the Games," the document alleges.

"For instance, in 2005 London secured the bid for the 2012 Summer Games with a cost estimate that two years later proved inadequate and was revised upwards with around 100 per cent.

"Then, when it turned out that the final outturn costs were slightly below the revised budget, the organisers falsely, but very publicly, claimed that the London Games had come in under budget...

"Such deliberate misinformation of the public about cost and cost overrun treads a fine line between spin and outright lying.

"It is unethical, no doubt, but very common."

Of course, hosting the Olympics can still be a good thing for a city, even if the ultimate cost is far over budget.

Of recent Summer Games, I would say it is possible to argue plausibly that Sydney, Beijing and London on balance derived more positives than negatives from acting as Olympic host cities.

With Athens, the legacy is mixed, although the Games helped to reshape the city extensively and for the benefit of many inhabitants, in spite of the white elephants and the deep-seated economic problems subsequently visited on the Greek population.

As for Rio de Janeiro, it is too soon to say, although with the benefit of hindsight, I tend to think that the Games went there too early. 

It remains the case though that cost overruns of the scale and inevitability identified by the Oxford study ought not to be allowed to continue.

I think you would find it would make a significant impact if, instead of lumping 100 per cent responsibility on the host city/country for cost overruns, the hosting contract allotted, say, five per cent of the risk to the IOC itself.

I am talking here only - like the study itself - about sports-related costs, not transport projects, or hotel upgrades or security.

The Lausanne body’s accountants and money men would no doubt scream in protest, since such a move would give rise, every two years, to a potential liability of unquantifiable size.

But it would provide a very real incentive for the IOC to scrutinise competing plans with utmost care at the bidding stage and, hence, contribute to a better and earlier understanding among all concerned of exactly what was being signed up for.

Rome’s withdrawal will deal a heavy blow to the IOC, perhaps heavier than they currently appreciate.

With so much doom and gloom around, the Movement badly needs heavyweight advocates to speak up for the significance of sport in the broader scheme of things.

With his passionately-argued contention that sport could be a weapon against efforts by fundamentalist terrorists to destroy liberal values and lifestyles, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was promising to become just such an advocate.

I would be surprised now if one or more of Rome’s erstwhile rivals do not try to pick up and run with this ball lobbed so obligingly onto the 2024 playing-field.

Whether they can do so with similar conviction remains to be seen.

The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games by Bent Flyvbjerg, Allison Stewart and Alexander Budzier of the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Available by clicking here.