By Matt Hardy
In the early hours of Tuesday morning a statement dropped announcing that the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games would not take place in the southern state of Australia.
It triggered a crisis for the Commonwealth and what it perceives to be its legacy.
Once the British Empire Games, the Commonwealth Games encompasses a modern Britain and a world where sport is put before a darker history.
Commonwealth or the common good?
But after Birmingham had to step in when Durban, South Africa couldn’t fulfil its bid, it looks as though another city may be required if the Commonwealth Games is to survive as a product.
So are the Commonwealth Games simply dead?
There are some who suggest that London could step in and host the Games, while others may point to the likes of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – former protectorates of Great Britain with deep financial resources – as potential hosts.
What two consecutive failed Commonwealth Games bids does show, however, is that if it is to survive the entire structure needs to change.
Progress looked to have been made when the number of protected sports in the schedule was dramatically reduced in a bid to encourage new countries to bid for the event, but that doesn’t seem to have worked.
There have been discussions in Canada and India over bids for the 2030 Games but it is uncertain whether either of those would be willing to move their plans forward by four years to accommodate the 2026 edition.
So maybe we just need to move on from these Games. The last edition, in Birmingham in 2022, was brilliant and was the definition of what many have dubbed the “friendly games”.
Fitting swansong
But that, the last under Queen Elizabeth II, could be a fitting swansong for an idea built on the foundations of empire and colonial rule of years gone by.
That’s not to say the Commonwealth Games, and by extension the Commonwealth, is redundant today, but it does say that the world has progressed and attempted to move on.
The Games has been in just four out of the group’s 56 countries during this century – England, Scotland, India and Australia – but have previously been in the likes of Jamaica and Malaysia.
The issue is, however, that the Games rarely get beyond the big four – Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – and that’s hardly an area that encompasses the Games and the legacy it’s meant to represent.
There have been discussions about a Caribbean bid in the past, as well as other African bids, but these haven’t managed to materialise beyond the failed Durban Games scheduled for 2022.
The Commonwealth as an organisation needs to decide whether the Games works in its current format and whether countries will be able to stump up the cash to host it going forward.
Because in its place – using the money that would otherwise be spent on the Games – you could better fund the Youth Games, make a difference to the overall fitness and health of Commonwealth members and help with modern issues such as climate change and third world sexual health.
The Games is glorious, there’s no denying that, and brings together 56 nations and territories together. That element cannot be lost.
But maybe it has had its time and the family of nations needs a radical new idea, one that doesn’t break the bank amid a global economic crisis.
