Australian state puts a hold on 2026 Commonwealth Games

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The Australian state of Victoria has said it will not host the 2026 Commonwealth Games due to cost overruns, which has raised doubts over the holding of the event.

Victoria’s Labor Premier Daniel Andrews said the cost of hosting sporting events in the state’s rural and coastal towns has tripled to A$7bn ($4.8bn) from an estimated A$2.6bn earlier last year. He said the decision to pull out of hosting the 12-day event was not a difficult one as it would be an “all cost, no gain” case for the debt-ridden state.

Held every four years, the Games feature the Commonwealth of Nations – largely made up of states with historical ties to Britain – competing in a variety of sports similar to the Olympic Games.

Craig Phillips, chief executive of Commonwealth Games Australia and former secretary-general of the Olympic Committee of Australia, said the move was “disappointing” for athletes, organizers and fans and he rejected the numbers used by Andrews to justify calling off the event. But questioned. three years before its launch.

The organization said it was informed about the decision only on Tuesday morning and preparations for the Games were thrown into disarray by the decision. Phillips said, “We’ll reset and move on.”

He said the new cost estimate was a “gross exaggeration” and that meetings with the Victorian government, most recently in June, had no bearing. “I find it a little hard to believe,” he said of the new cost estimate, adding that the Birmingham Games in 2022 would cost around A$1.8 billion.

Andrews said security and transport costs were behind the budget blast of A$4 billion in estimated costs.

This is the second time in a row that the Commonwealth Games have been cancelled. Plans to host the last Games in Durban, South Africa, were cancelled, and the event was moved to Birmingham, England, due to concerns over funding.

Other Australian states quickly pulled themselves out of the bid to host the event. Western Australia premier Roger Cook said, “The Commonwealth Games are not the same as they used to be and as a result, they do not provide a return on investment.”

Australia has built a reputation as one of the leading venues for major sporting events since the Sydney Olympics in 2000. The Women’s World Cup, co-hosted with New Zealand, starts this week, while the netball and rugby union World Cups and the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games are due to be hosted in the country in the next decade.

Shadow federal sports minister Anne Ruston said the cancellation would undermine future attempts to host major events. “Today is a very sad day for Australian sport,” he said.

Andrews last year sold the idea of ​​a Victoria Commonwealth Games as a boon for rural and coastal cities – including the former gold-rush city of Ballarat, the industrial coastal city of Geelong and the agricultural town of Shepparton. That plan relied on building expensive facilities such as a temporary velodrome in Ballarat, rather than using locations in the state’s largest city, Melbourne.

Phillips said Melbourne’s reputation as an international sporting capital had been jeopardized by the actions of the Victorian government. “If I come as an international sports body in future and do business in this state, I will be very careful,” he said.

University of Technology Sydney economist Tim Harcourt said the cancellation was short-sighted at a time when Australia was looking to build its geopolitical and trade power in the Indo-Pacific region, which is well represented in the Games.

“The Commonwealth Games are very important for business,” he said. “It is not that they have gone out of fashion, but that they are not being used at the level that they could be important.”