G4S chief admits Olympics fiasco threatens future contracts Nick Buckles has confirmed G4S is to withdraw from bidding for security contracts for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. The chairman of G4S has admitted the Olympic Games security debacle could cost the security firm future public contracts. He said the position of Nick Buckles, the company's beleaguered chief executive, would come under review and refused to give him his unequivocal backing. Breaking his silence, John Connolly told the Sunday Times in an interview: "If a contract was being given out by a government department or other large business at the moment, you can understand they would find it difficult to hand that contract to us." G4S is bidding for contracts to run nine British prisons that are to be privatised, as well as services for the police. Chief constables from Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire are reconsidering plans to outsource 1,100 back office jobs to G4S, and will hold a further meeting behind closed doors with police authority members on Monday. A final decision will have to be made in public by each authority. It follows confirmation from Buckles last week that the company is to withdraw from the bidding for security contracts for the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Asked whether Buckles, the 52-year-old son of an Essex policeman, should stay at the helm, Connolly said: "One of the reasons I came to the company was because of Nick ... I felt we would work very well together. I now have to take into account this development, and when it's the time to focus on the top team, I will. I don't need to do that now. Connolly only started in his role on 8 June, replacing former chairman Alf Duch-Pedersen, who quit after last year's abortive £5.2bn takeover of Danish rival ISS. Connolly added: "It is inevitable that a part of it [a review into the Olympics contract] will be a discussion about the senior management. Was there enough of a focus on this contract? Buckles has been left fighting for his career since it emerged a fortnight ago that G4S did not have enough trained guards to secure Olympic venues. About 3,500 troops have been put on standby to make up the shortfall, with a further 1,200 on 48 hours' notice. More than £1bn of the company's £7.5bn of annual revenues comes from public sector contracts around the world. The UK government paid G4S £759m last year for services including electronic tagging of criminals and processing Department for Work and Pensions benefits claimants. The company runs six prisons as well as detention centres for asylum seekers in Britain and looks after security at several UK hospitals. City analysts believe G4S can bounce back from the Olympics fiasco - as it has done previously. There have been other high-profile failures for the company, such as the Yarl's Wood detention centre fire in 2002. G4S was created in 2004 from the merger of the UK's Securicor and Denmark's Group 4 Falck, but an attempt to become even bigger failed spectacularly last year when investors opposed the takeover of Danish cleaning group ISS. This cost G4S £55m in fees. Analysts at Exane BNP Paribas said: "The Olympics have turned into a debacle for G4S [but] the London problems should not severely jeopardise the group's long-term growth prospects." Moving away from Whitehall contracts, it plans to earn half its worldwide revenues from African and Asian countries, and already makes more money from developing countries than from the UK.