Scotsman deputy political editor David Bol at the Commonwealth Games 2026 launch

Transcript

00:00Hi there, David Bolt, the Scotsman here. I've been at the launch of the Commonwealth Games

00:042026 event in Glasgow, where we were formally told that Glasgow will step in and host the

00:10Games in 2026. Obviously comes 10 years after I hosted it last time, but this is going to

00:15be a much different event. It's going to be very much scaled down. There's only 10 events

00:18taking place across four big venues, although the athletics will be taking place at Scotstoun,

00:24which is more known for hosting rugby games. The hosts were insisting that it would still

00:30have a great atmosphere, people would basically be very close to the action, and it would

00:34still feel like a big event. We've also had a little discussion over the finances. There's

00:40been a lot of talk about whether the Scottish Government and Scotland should come in and

00:44host the Games, given the financial troubles that the original hosts in Australia had.

00:50John Swinney, Andy and Murray, the Scottish Secretary, both insisting that no public funds

00:55will be used to prop up the Games. These big events tend to go over budget if that happens,

01:02that there'll be no public funding available. There's a 24 million contingency plan in case

01:08they do, and they hope they won't have to use it, but it's just there as a reassurance.

01:12There's a bit of confusion though, because John Doig from the Scottish Commonwealth Association

01:19basically said that there's no way that it'll get scaled down. Still a little bit of a row

01:23over how this is going to be funded and paid for, but it looks like Scotland has stepped

01:28in and the scaled down version does look like it's going to be the future of the Commonwealth

01:34Games. There's a look at this model being the future of it. These smaller events, which

01:40obviously cut costs for some of the bigger countries, like Australia, who struggled this

01:43time, but also opens the door for smaller countries in the Commonwealth to be able to

01:47actually host the events themselves. Obviously we've got a little bit of time to prepare

01:53until they take place, but those preparations will be underway now and hopefully Scotland

01:58can put on a good show.