The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be coming to Scotland. After months of discussions, negotiations and setbacks in the choice of the Games’ next host city, the Scottish government has come to an agreement with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF). In two years, Glasgow will welcome a revised version of the competition, with only 10 disciplines, 8 less than in the 2014 Glaswegian edition, mobilising less infrastructures.
The drama around the next Commonwealth Games’ organisation highlighted an issue that may be an obstacle to other future sporting events: money. The main reason why it has taken so long to find a place for the 2026 Commonwealth Games is the cost of their organisation.
The 2022 Birmingham Games’ closing ceremony emphasised that Australia would welcome the 2026 edition, but the whole plan fell apart in July 2023. Daniel Andrews, at that time Victorian premier, announced his state’s retirement from hosting the Commonwealth Games due to financial reasons: the effective cost of organising the competition had gone from an estimated $2.6bn to $7bn. The state could not invest such an amount of money for a 12 day event.
It is not the first time that financial matters have jeopardised the holding of the Commonwealth Games. The 2022 edition was supposed to take place in Durban, in South Africa. The country could not meet the financial expectations required to organise the competition. Birmingham then took over the 2022 Games, to prevent its cancelling, therefore leaving an empty space for the 2026 edition which it was supposed to host. After Australia’s withdrawal as a host, Malaysia was offered the possibility to welcome the Games from the CGF, which the government refused. Money was once again at the core of the problem: it was uncertain whether the country would have been able to finance the competition, despites a $100m offer from the Federation to support the organisation process.
Critics have, however, shown that the cost of organising the competition might not be the only factor to blame for the withdrawal of Australia as a host nation. Daniel Andrews’ plan for the Commonwealth Games in Victoria was indeed ambitious: most events were to take place outside of Melbourne, the Victorian capital, and instead be spread across five sites across the state. This strategy implied creating temporary infrastructures, which was said to have participated in the initial budget exceeding expectations
Did the predictions of the Australian Commonwealth Games’ organisation underestimate the price? We will probably never really know. Neither will we be sure that the cost blowout which urged the Australian government from pulling out was accurate. A report from the state’s auditor general strongly criticised the outcome of this Commonwealth Games drama, saying that the extra spendings had been exaggerated.
Still, this story reveals the tremendous financial efforts host countries must commit to when organising such events on their territory. This year’s Paris Olympics (although on a bigger scale, and with a different funding system), is yet another example. The total cost of the competition is said to have reached between €9 and €11bn, exceeding the initial planned budget of €6bn. This surely excludes less wealthy countries from organising sports competitions, as such expenditures may only be possible for privileged states. Global discussion on sports events’ cost seems to have been triggered by this episode, which clearly threatened the continuity of Commonwealth Games’ legacy: in the Glasgow Times, Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken expressed her wish for Glasgow to “deliver a much more sustainable model of the Games, which could be replicated in Commonwealth countries who don’t have the wealth of the UK, Canada or Australia but who would truly benefit from hosting an international sporting event”. Such a transformation of sports’ landscape seems to be already at work in some disciplines, such as cycling, who’s next World Championships will occur in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, making the 2025 edition the first one to be held in an African country. We can hope that this promising dynamic continues, and that the world of sports competitions’ indeed opens up to more candidates.
File:Hampden Park Glasgow Commonwealth Games Day 9.JPG” by Groundhopper2000 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.