The fallout from Victoria’s exit and the athletes left behind
The Commonwealth Games are just a few days away, yet neither the Glaswegians hosting it, nor the Victorians paying for it seem to know.
Most Melburnians approached on the street by this masthead on Friday were surprised to learn the Games were happening this year, let alone this month.
Only six out of 40 people we spoke to knew they were coming up, and just seven knew they were in Scotland. One person thought the Games were still taking place in Victoria, and three did not know what the Commonwealth Games were.
It sums up a difficult few years for the event, which had already been struggling for relevance before Victoria’s decision to pull the plug saw it walk the gauntlet of public rejection, as country after country refused to take it on.
Glasgow finally agreed to host a small-scale version with a reduced roster of sports and no athletes’ village, costed at around $300 million – a far cry from the allegedly $6 billion fiasco Victoria ended up canning.
Adding insult to injury, the Scottish and UK Governments will not spend a penny, according to the Glasgow Games 2026 website.
Instead, the Victorian government has borne the bulk of the expense, forced to pay the 11th-hour hosts $200 million of its $380 million compensation fee. The remaining amount is slated to come from commercial revenue streams.
It is a sweet deal for Glasgow – as the Victorian opposition and media have repeatedly pointed out – if only locals knew about it.
“Is it in Glasgow?” one local, Shona Ainslie, said when this masthead got in touch to ask how the city was feeling one week out.
“Wow that’s mad. I didn’t know that … Actually, I did see a sign the other day. As I was driving into Glasgow, there was the classic ‘welcome to Glasgow’ sign, and below it there was like a ‘proud host of the something games’.
“But that’s actually all I’ve seen which is crazy because there was a Commonwealth Games in Glasgow like 12 years ago and it was a huge deal.”
With a stop-start run-up and a FIFA World Cup to contend with, organisers are optimistic that any lacklustre response from the public is just a lack of awareness, not indifference.
The Scotsman reported last week that there were still plenty of tickets to be sold and interest seemed cooler than for the 2014 Glasgow Games, but these concerns were dismissed by local organising company chief Phil Batty.
“The sales are strong. We’re in a really good position with hundreds of thousands of people filling our venues across the competition program,” Batty told the paper.
“Birmingham sold one in five of its tickets during the Games itself. That is very typical of any major event, not just Commonwealth Games.”
In Glasgow’s favour is the fact that almost half of Melburnians in our casual poll said they would likely tune into the Games.
Commonwealth Games Australia marketing general manager Cody Lynch said it was not unusual for engagement to remain low in the lead-up, and it was typically not until the Opening Ceremony that things really kicked off.
“We’re not shocked by the fact that it’s not necessarily front page news yet,” he said.
“Australians pay attention to Australians at the Commonwealth Games when the Commonwealth Games are happening.”
Lynch said while Victoria’s decision to pull the plug was “absolutely a setback”, it was in the past.
“Victoria happened. It’s not what we wanted to see, but it’s behind us now, and we’re focused on delivering a result here in Glasgow,” he said.
“We’ve got a host for 2030 (Ahmedabad, India). We’ve got a Commonwealth Youth Games in Malta next year, and we’ve got a pipeline of potential hosts for 2034 … We’ve also got a home [Brisbane] Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032, which is very exciting. But absolutely, we would love to see the games back in Australia in the future.”
While Australia may live to see another Commonwealth Games, Victoria will not be putting up its hand again anytime soon. At a press conference in May, sports minister Steve Dimopoulos said that idea had been put to bed “for quite some time”.
Like Commonwealth Games Australia, the state government is keen to see the saga in the rearview mirror. Since then premier Daniel Andrews announced Victoria’s withdrawal, the decision has haunted the party and his successor, Jacinta Allan, who was then Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery.
Three years have since passed and still unrelated inquiries to the sports minister are met with suspicion, with media representatives obliged to ask – “this isn’t about the Commonwealth Games is it?”
As athletes began flying out this month, state ministers were conspicuously absent from press conferences bidding them farewell. The government has not organised live fan sites, as it did for the World Cup, nor announced other ways Victoria will be showing its support.
While few states are sending ministers to the Games, most are showing a bit more enthusiasm. The NSW government last week announced a $500,000 contribution to Australian athletes competing in the Games, while WA said it had given an additional $5000 in direct financial assistance to every WA athlete headed over.
The WA government will also light up Perth Stadium in green and gold for the opening ceremony and display the medal tally on a screen at Yagan Square. It is considering showing the Games at a live site in Northbridge, among other city activations, including a museum exhibition about Perth’s history with the event.
The athletes left behind
At least one category of Victorians has been well aware the Games are coming up. Olympic badminton player Gronya Somerville is among the athletes who did not just miss out on competing in a home event, but missed out on playing altogether, after the reduced sports roster saw about a dozen events dropped.
Somerville said while she was still looking forward to watching her fellow Australians compete on the world stage, it would be bittersweet, and she still did not understand why the Victorian government had canned the Games.
“I was really surprised – especially hearing it was $3 billion over budget. Like, how do you get through the bidding process … without actually testing the viability? … We could’ve done a scaled-down version … But it kind of seemed like they just gave up,” Somerville said.
“Still, I was really confident that another country would pick it up, but kept hearing country after country didn’t want to host it. Then Glasgow got it which was good. Then we found out we weren’t included.
“We’ve had some time to get used to it now but going from the excitement of it being a home Games and having all of your family and friends come watch you … to not even participating. It’s really jarring.”
After placing fourth twice, the 31-year-old said she had been excited to push for a podium finish this year. She said the Commonwealth Games were usually the Australian badminton team’s best chance at a medal as Asian nations like China and South Korea tended to dominate the sport in the Olympics.
Fellow Victorian athlete Amy Lawton said she had been similarly shocked to hear field hockey had not made the cut. She said she felt particularly bad for athletes in smaller nations who did not typically get a look-in at the Olympics.
“Some countries might not get the opportunity of an international stage like this unless its Commonwealth Games,” she said.
“I look at some of the small countries that we play against or did at the last Commonwealth Games, who won’t probably ever get the opportunity to play at an Olympics because they’re not at that level.”
She said the Games were also a unique opportunity for para athletes and able-bodied athletes to compete on the same stage, unlike the Olympics and Paralympics, which are held as separate events.
The debacle over the cancellation of the Victorian Commonwealth Games has raised questions about the levels of government funding provided to athletes.
The federal government provides grants that are distributed by the Australian Sports Commission, but the state institutes of sport rely mainly on state governments to support their athletes.
There are 56 Victorian-based athletes competing in Glasgow – the third most of any state or territory – 49 of whom are supported by the Victorian Institute of Sport.
Yet VIS scholars are among the lowest-funded in the country in terms of dollars per categorised athlete.
The VIS supports about 400 athletes and currently receives $14.5 million a year in state government funding. By comparison, Queensland provides around $34 million a year for more than 500 athletes. WA provides about $14 million a year for just under 300 athletes. And the NSW Institute of Sport, which has about 430 athletes, receives about $19 million a year.
A spokesperson for Swimming Victoria said it was important Victorian athletes were able to access the high-performance support they needed to succeed in their home state, rather than being drawn interstate by larger funding pools and greater service offerings.
A Victorian government spokesperson said the state backed its athletes “all the way to Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032”.
“That commitment doesn’t stop at the finish line,” they said.
“We’re investing $32.7 million to expand VIS programs, backing our athletes to succeed at every level.”
“Labor has delivered also more than $2 billion to upgrade sporting facilities and clubs right across Victoria – growing sport from grassroots to the elite level.”
Tracking promises in regional Victoria
The loss of the Games has also been felt in regional Victoria, which was at the centre of the state’s ill-fated plans.
After tearing up the deal to host, the government made clear it remained committed to funding the infrastructure it had promised. Some of this work has since been completed, and the majority is at least underway, but the commitment several councils were pushing hardest for – more housing – is the one furthest behind.
Geelong mayor Dr Stretch Kontelj said he was still waiting for an update on the status of a social and affordable housing development the government had promised for the regional city, whose population is among the fastest growing in the country.
“I’ve been to the sod turn for all the other projects – the Stead Park pavilion, the Waurn Ponds sporting complex, Armstrong Creek’s aquatic centre,” he said. “I haven’t been to a sod turn for the housing yet … That’s not advanced at all … and that’s the one I’d most like to see built.”
By June 30 last year, the Victorian government had only spent $91.5 million of the $1 billion allocated as part of the Commonwealth Games legacy commitment to build homes in regional centres. At that time, it was forecast that about half of the total money would be spent by mid-2026.
However, the state government said this week that latest estimates put expenditure to June 2026 at $251.8 million. It said it was still on track to deliver the 1300 homes promised by 2028, with more than 1000 finished or under construction.
When Victoria first announced its withdrawal from the 2026 Games, Commonwealth Games Australia said the state government had “jeopardised Melbourne and Victoria’s standing as a sporting capital of the world”.
Yet with major sports like the NFL continuing to be drawn here, it seems the state’s sports reputation is among the least affected by the fallout. Instead, athletes and regional Victorians seem to have come up short. Whether the Games have suffered long-term damage in relevance and viewership will soon be revealed.
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Bridget McArthur is a sports affairs reporter at The Age, covering the intersection of sports and politics/business/economy/society.Connect via X or email.
