Chair of axed Victorian Commonwealth Games bid doesn’t think other countries want to host

The former chair of Victoria’s abandoned bid for the Commonwealth Games has revealed her fears for the future of the event because of exploding costs and big countries don’t “see any benefit of continuing to do this”.

Peggy O’Neal, the former Richmond Football Club president, was “surprised but not surprised” when the Victorian government pulled the pin on hosting the 2026 Games due to budgetary issues, declaring early indications were not enough money had been allocated.

Before being informed that she and her crew had to “down tools”, O’Neal had written to then Commonwealth Games minister, now Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, informing her the costs were going to be “significantly in excess” of the original $2.6bn budget.

But when no reply was forthcoming, O’Neal suspected things were “not right” before eventually being told the plans were being abandoned and a financial settlement with the Commonwealth Games Federation was being negotiated.

While Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has announced plans to rescue the Games with a “streamlined” event and an official pitch potentially to be put before the CGF in Singapore later in November, O’Neal said the increasingly prohibitive costs could put the event’s future in doubt.

Canada has also pulled out of hosting the 2030 Games, casting a dark cloud over the event.

“It’s expensive to host any international competition and the Commonwealth itself has some pretty poor countries and some pretty wealthy countries and I don’t know those wealthy countries see any benefit of continuing to do this,” O’Neal told the No Limitations podcast.

“It’s a very expensive undertaking and usually for not much benefit. There’s always the talk about tourism but I saw some figures … that nobody had really made any money from these international sporting events.”

When he pulled the pin in July, former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews claimed that the budget had ballooned to $7bn, with the decision sparking a senate inquiry that he didn’t appear before.

O’Neal confirmed it was clear the Games, which were to be held across regional Victoria, couldn’t be achieved for original forecasts quite early after taking up her role.

“We were notified the contract was going to be cancelled and it was a budgetary issue, I was surprised and not totally surprised,” she said.

“I had nothing to do with the politics. Under our budget numbers we had put together, we needed more money and the reply was taking longer to get back than normal.

“It was going to be hard to pull this off in three years because there was so much to do.

“In the end, if there’s no money, there’s no money and we didn’t have the overview of all of the costs, we just knew what our part would cost. I received a letter to in fact down tools.”

O’Neal said she hadn’t heard anything about anyone else taking up the Games despite the Gold Coast push.

“I haven’t anything about anyone taking it on. I wouldn’t necessarily know,” she said.

“I doubt it would be in Australia.”