Australia's Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games on Tuesday citing budget blowouts as the projected cost had become "well and truly too much" for the Australian state of Victoria to bear, news agency AFP reported. The decision to pull out now leaves Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) scrambling to keep the quadrennial international multi-sport event afloat. As per AFP, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that initial estimate given by the organisers to hold the 12-day tournament was Aus$2 billion (US$1.36 billion) but now the new figures, likely to be around Aus$7 billion, is "too much" for the state to bear and he isn't ready to make up the shortfall by redirecting money from other parts of his government's budget. The last and only time Commonwealth Games were cancelled was during World War Two (1942 and 1946).
"I've made a lot of difficult calls, a lot of very difficult decisions in this job. This is not one of them. Frankly, $7 billion for a sporting event, we are not doing that," he said at a press conference in Melbourne.
"The Games will not proceed in Victoria in 2026. We have informed Commonwealth Games authorities of our decision to seek to terminate the contract," he added.
The event was due to be hosted across five venues -- Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Gippsland and Shepparton -- with each regional hub having its own athletes' village. Australian state of Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said that he even considered cutting up on hubs or even moving the Games to Melbourne but "none of these options stack up."
The Commonwealth Games Federation blasted the move as "hugely disappointing".
"We are disappointed that we were only given eight hours' notice and that no consideration was given to discussing the situation to jointly find solutions prior to this decision being reached by the government," it said in a statement.