Australians feel 'conned' after Glasgow slimmed down Commonwealth Games announcement
Australians have said they feel 'utterly conned' and that Glaswegians are 'laughing' at them following the announcement of a slimmed down Commonwealth Games.
Down under presenter Tom Elliott made the comments on his popular 3AW Melbourne radio show in response to Glasgow being named as the host for the budget games.
It comes as anger has risen across the pond as Aussie taxpayers will have to foot the £100 million bill for the sporting event after the state of Victoria pulled out last year over soaring costs.
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Speaking on the show Elliott said: "(They've) apparently been laughing at us on the streets of Glasgow. Glaswegians think we are hilarious because they are getting to stage a cut price Commonwealth Games. with only ten sports and it's nearly entirely being paid for by the Australian tax payer to the tune of AU$205 million.
"What's interesting here is I have read what sports they are going to have and where they are going to host it, ten sports only, so that's only half the sports that there were in Birmingham and pretty much everything will take place in four existing venues.
"This is the Commonwealth Games that Melbourne should have had. We could have had that standing on our head.
"We could have done 10 or 15 sports. We have every facility you could need. We wouldn't have had to build anything to have hosted these Commonwealth Games.
"The reason that we are not is because the state government was obsessed with this ridiculous idea of having the games hosted across five regional centres around Victoria. It was never going to work."
Elliott continues that it would take spectators over four hours to travel in-between some of the hosting centres. He continued: "The more I think about it, the more the decision to host the games immediately after the pandemic was simply done to take minds off the pandemic and to help the state government win the 2022 election.
"There is no doubt that they needed to win lots of seats in regional Victoria. Hence they came up with this stupid idea of a regional Commonwealth Games. I don't believe the state government ever intended to host.
"They wasted hundreds of millions of dollars to buy votes and we fell for it. We're paying AU$380 million to not host the games.
"Glasgow a slimmed down version for half of that money and we are paying. We could have done it in Melbourne for that price and we should have done it."
The Games will take place from July 23 to August 2, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has announced. Glasgow 2026 will feature a 10-sport programme across four venues within an eight-mile corridor, with more than 500,000 tickets made available for spectators.
Around 3,000 athletes are expected to compete from up to 74 Commonwealth nations and territories representing a combined total of 2.5 billion people - a third of the world's entire population. Para sport will once again be fully integrated as a key priority for the Games, with six Para sports included on the programme.
The four venues confirmed to host events are Scotstoun Stadium, Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Emirates Arena and the Scottish Event Campus. The Glasgow 2026 Games is estimated to deliver more than £100 million of inward investment into the city.
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