As athletes participating in 10 sports descend upon Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games, which begins on Thursday night with the opening ceremony, it’s been revealed just how close they came to not being there at all.
An article in Thursday’s edition of The Australian newspaper says it was Australia’s Commonwealth Games Association who paid for half the Games when the Scottish government refused to.
Craig Phillips, the head of Australia’s CGA, says the Games – and the entire concept of the Commonwealth Games, stretching back to when it was called the Empire Games in 1930 – would have collapsed if they didn’t.
Glasgow stepped in at the last minute to take over the running of this year’s Commonwealth Games. (Picture: Getty)How did we get here?
Glasgow was not the initial host of the 2026 Commonwealth Games. That honour went to the Australian state of Victoria, which had decided, in a departure from previous Games, to hold it in the state’s major regional centres of Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat and Gippsland.
But then, in 2023, Victoria shocked the Commonwealth when the then-state premier, Daniel Andrews, withdrew from hosting the Games, saying the cost was too high.
Andrews said he was not prepared to spend up to $7bn (£3.6bn) on a “12-day sporting event”.
Glasgow stepped in as a late replacement but preparations hit more hurdles when the UK government would not underwrite the plans without Scottish contributions, something the Scottish National Party government in Holyrood was unwilling to do.
“It just wasn’t palatable to not have the Games,’’ Phillips told The Australian.
George Black is the chair of the Glasgow 2026 Organising Company. (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA)‘Of course we’ll pick up the tab’
He says the board of Commonwealth Games Australia took just one hour to decide to make a significant $4.6m (£2.4m) payment to Scotland.
Officials in Westminster said they would put in $4.6m, but only if the Scottish government matched the money to cover an increase in safety and security costs if terror threat levels rose before the Games.
With the Glasgow plan on the verge of collapse due to these stalled negotiations in September 2024, Phillips convened an emergency Commonwealth Games Australia board meeting in Melbourne.
“It came about because we were observing what was going on. We knew Glasgow was close to getting over the line. We knew the UK government had made a commitment,” he said.
“The Scottish government had expressed their support, but they weren’t willing to put public money in and we could understand why. So essentially we helped them out by saying, well of course we will pick up the tab.”
Dancers at the opening ceremony for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games at Celtic Park (Picture: Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images)A scaled-back Games
The nature of Glasgow’s build-up to hosting these Games means things will be run in a scaled back way – there will only be 10 sports on the schedule this time, down from 20 in Birmingham four years ago.
But the Commonwealth Games is already starting to climb back to where it was before the Victorian disaster.
The Indian city of Ahmedabad is confirmed to host the 2030 Games, with around 15 to 18 sports including athletics, swimming, table tennis, bowls, weightlifting, artistic gymnastics, netball, and boxing.
Sports such as T20 cricket, badminton, shooting, and hockey are still to be confirmed.
“I feel a great sense of relief’,” says Phillips.
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