Glasgow Commonwealth Games would cost tiny fraction of Victoria’s

Cost blowouts on the $6.9 billion cancelled Commonwealth Games in regional Victoria were not overstated despite Victoria’s Games plan being 31 times more expensive than a “compact” replacement pitched for Glasgow, the state government has insisted.

Commonwealth Games Scotland said it had an “innovative, cost-effective and sustainable” proposal that would not require any government funding, at a total estimated cost of £114 million ($222 million). Most of the cash would come from compensation the Victorian government paid for tearing up its contract for the 2026 event.

Then-premier Daniel Andrews and his deputy, Jacinta Allan, announce the cancellation in July last year of Victoria’s 2026 Commonwealth Games.Credit: Joe Armao

The Glasgow event would host only 10 sports, compared with the 21 Victoria had been preparing for. There would be just four venues no more than 13 kilometres apart. Existing stadiums, accommodation and transport connections would be relied on to avoid the need for building major infrastructure.

Victoria abandoned the Games in July last year when the estimated cost soared from $2.6 billion to almost $7 billion. But in March the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office found this updated cost was “overstated and not transparent”.

Then-premier Daniel Andrews said last year that the cost would still have been well over $4 billion had the Games been cut back to a Melbourne-only event.

The Victorian government has always maintained the value of hosting was to deliver benefits to the regions, which will still gain from a $2 billion investment in homes and sporting infrastructure.

The state opposition’s tourism, sports and events spokesman, Sam Groth, said the Glasgow Games proposal exposed Victoria’s cost estimations as a joke.

“When we see another city and another country being able to host this event at the cost of $200 million, you have to question the Labor government’s ability to manage our major events calendar,” Groth said.

Cabinet minister Mary-Anne Thomas rejected suggestions that Victoria’s cancelled Games were badly organised or that the cost had been overstated.

“We were wanting to do something unique. We wanted to ensure that the benefits of the Comm Games flowed directly to the regions,” Thomas said. “At the end of the day, the money just did not stack up.”

“We were wanting to do something unique”: Cabinet minister Mary-Anne Thomas on the scrapped Games.Credit: Nine

The report from the Auditor-General’s Office said the flawed business case should have looked into the cost of hosting events in Melbourne or just one regional city.

Federal Nationals leader David Littleproud told Nine’s Weekend Today program that Australia could have used existing infrastructure to keep the 2026 event.

“But unfortunately, we’ve forked out $600 million, and it only took the Scots $200 million to run a Games.”

Victoria paid the Commonwealth Games Federation and Commonwealth Games Australia a combined $380 million in compensation. The state spent at least $589 million not to host the Games.

Under the Commonwealth Games Scotland proposal, £100 million (AUD$194 million) of the compensation would go towards a Glasgow event. The rest would be funded through “commercial opportunities”, without the need for any government funding.

“Unique to this opportunity, the Games will be funded by private income rather than the public purse, with the majority of costs covered by the [Commonwealth Games Federation], using money secured in a compensation negotiation with the Victorian government following their withdrawal as hosts in July 2023,” Commonwealth Games Scotland said.

“Unlike other major multi-sport events, the concept has been specifically designed to ensure that there is no requirement from the public purse to deliver the Games.”

The estimated total cost included a budget contingency of 24 per cent.

Commonwealth Games Scotland chair Ian Reid called on the Scottish government to make a decision within weeks.

“Scotland has been offered £100m+ of the Victorian government’s money to secure the future of the Commonwealth Games,” Reid said.

“To potentially turn down such a significant sum of money, which only serves to boost the Glasgow and Scottish economies and has been deliberately created not to rely on the public purse at a time of economic uncertainty, is – in our opinion – short-sighted.”

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