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Glasgow, Nov 26 (PTI) The Commonwealth movement was on the verge of “collapse” after the Australian state of Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games, but Scotland’s decision to step in saved the future of the multi-sport event, governing body chief Donald Rukare said on Wednesday.
Victoria, the original host, had in July 2023 pulled out due to escalating costs. The likes of Malaysia and Singapore were talked about as having interest in hosting the 2026 Games but ultimately Glasgow agreed to stage a scale-down CWG with some financial help from Australia.
Rukare was on wednesday elected President of Commonwealth Sport on full-time basis by the General Assembly. He was holding the top post on interim basis after the resignation of Chris Jenkins earlier this year.
Rukare was addressing a press conference after Ahmedabad was formally approved as the host city of the 2030 CWG by the Commonwealth Sport’s General Assembly here.
“That’s very true. When we were in Singapore in 2023, you all know there was a bit of a dark cloud with the situation at that point,” Rukare replied when asked how close did it come to collapsing the whole Commonwealth Games.
Scotland stepped in as 2026 hosts and on Wednesday India’s Ahmedabad was formally awarded as 2030 host city, while Nigeria could be in the frame for the 2034 edition.
“We were very close to saying that was the future of the Commonwealth movement, Commonwealth sport, but we’re very happy with the stepping up of Glasgow and Scotland in a critical time of our movement when there was a lot of uncertainty, in many ways, that was a game-changer,” said the Ugandan, who took charge of Commonwealth Sport after the resignation of Chris Jenkins from the top post earlier in the year.
“We believe that in many ways that was able to put the Games back. And this was part of also our overall and overarching Games reset and refresh strategy, which we had put in place, where we’re looking at the Games in a slightly different way.
“We have definitely turned a positive corner because following the announcement of Glasgow 26, we then saw an unprecedented level of interest from close to five countries, which invariably culminated into the two biggest populous nations of our 74 territories being India and Nigeria. And we are where we are now with 2030, but also we have 2027, the Youth Games is also locked in.” Commonwealth Sport CEO Katie Sadleir said she has seen “a massive ambition and transformation that’s going on in India” in terms of where the country “wants to position itself on a world stage as a major sporting power.” “I’ve had the privilege of visiting India three times within the last 12 months and what I have seen is a massive ambition and transformation that’s going on in India in terms of where they want to position themselves on a world stage as a major sporting power.
“And with that there has been a clear direction at all levels of government to to transform and put in best practice in terms of legislation and governance reviews and so it is really transformational what they’re doing and what their ambition is.” Sadleir said Commonwealth Sport will work with the team in India to make sure that all the processes are robust.
“It’s great to hear that the organizing committee is going to be up and running in a month. We’re going to do everything we can to sort of work with with the team in India to make sure that that all those processes are robust,” he said.
“But we will have a COCOM (Coordination Committee), that is part of the things that gets built into the contract. We’re quite right now been quite focused on working with our COCOM and our evaluations of 2026.
“But we will develop a programme of that activity that will take place over the next five years. And we will we will make sure that that process is robust and helpful in terms of actually making sure that all those checks and balances are in place.”
(Disclaimer: This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
