The 2026 Commonwealth Games have been thrown into doubt
after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew as host.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said it was not
prepared to spend as much as $7bn (£3.6bn) on “a 12-day sporting event” and
that the cost of hosting had spiralled from an earlier estimate of $2.6bn
(£1.4bn).
“The Games will not proceed in Victoria in 2026,” he said. “We
have informed Commonwealth Games authorities of our decision to seek to
terminate the contract, and to … not host the games.”
The 2026 Commonwealth Games were set to be held in regional
Victoria across towns including Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. Birmingham had originally been
set to host the 2026 Games, but this was brought forward when original 2022
host Durban was stripped of the right to stage the 2022 Games due to
financial issues, leaving a vacancy in 2026, which led to Victoria stepping in.
Andrews added: “Last year when the Commonwealth Games
authorities approached us and needed someone to step in to host the 2026
Commonwealth Games, as a state we were happy to help out, but of course not at
any price. I’ve made a lot of difficult decisions in this job, this is not one
of them. It’s just quite obvious, we are not going to spend six to seven
billion dollars on a 12-day sporting event. We don’t just make popular
decisions, we do what’s right and it would simply be wrong.”
The Commonwealth Games Federation labelled the decision as
“hugely disappointing”,
“Since awarding Victoria the Games, the government has made
decisions to include more sports and an additional regional hub, and changed
plans for venues, all of which have added considerable expense, often against
the advice of the CGF and Commonwealth Games Australia (CGA),” the CGF said in
a statement.
“We are disappointed that we were only given eight hours’
notice and that no consideration was given to discussing the situation to
jointly find solutions prior to this decision being reached by the government.
“Up until this point, the government had advised that
sufficient funding was available to deliver the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth
Games.”
The Commonwealth Games take place every four years and were first staged in 1930.
The
Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games saw a record 1.5 million spectators buy
tickets for events, making it the most popular Commonwealth Games ever to be
hosted in the UK. More than five million people came to Birmingham city centre
during Games-time – a 200 per cent increase on the same period 12 months earlier. Hotel
occupancy in Birmingham averaged 90 per cent during the 12-day Commonwealth
Games period. with hotels receiving an additional £19.4 million in room revenue
compared to the same period in 2019.
