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Today is decision day for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which Glasgow is bidding to host. We have live broadcasts up here in Scotland for the decision from Sri Lanka. I can hardly wait.

I’ve detected in the small bit of coverage I saw yesterday, that there’s a certain restraint, pessimism even. Perhaps it’s just last minute nerves and prudence, but I’m wondering if there’s behind the scenes briefing going on to ensure the coverage is restrained, rather than painting a picture of inevitability. Remember that an african country has never hosted the Commonwealth Games, so there’s a strong political movement to allow Nigeria to host it this time. It’s also been pointed out that there’s already preparation already in place from Glasgow council for a 2018 bid: They’ve reserved the domain names (Do a WHOIS search for glasgow2018.com and look at the details). Prudence perhaps, or resignation? Just wish I’d thought of it first.

I still think the money could be much better spent on mass participation initiatives that ordinary people could take part in. Jog Scotland is a great example. It has been pointed out to me that there would be a lot of investment in a deprived part of Glasgow’s East End. However, I’d much rather seeing that being tackled constructively and honestly (with some of this money), rather than as some sort of side effect. It’s a genuine problem that needs to be tackled by politicians at all levels. As far as building inspiration, how about starting with discouraging sporting stars advertising junk food…? And perhaps trying to encourage local sporting communities and initiatives?

More on this later

Update 12:29 – I figured it was worth popping BBC1 Scotland on and keeping one ear to the news. “Will somebody think of the children” was practically the pundits point: There’ll be kids watching, and it’d be horrible if they were disappointed by Glasgow not getting the games. Of course the organisers set it up such that there’d be lots of kids watching. Schools. Sports Centres. Honestly.

An athlete with a microphone in front of him says “It’d be great to have friends and family and come along to watch you compete; It’d be great with a home crowd“. Erm. That’s ok then. Let’s spend all that money for you to get a bit of a cheer. Presenter talks about “Inspiration. It’d be great to inspire them”. Hmmmm. Turning watching something (particularly those who might otherwise not go near a sport) into participating is a challenge that requires a bit more than a fortnight of elite athletes in our city.

Rooms full of screaming children seems to be mandatory. Be interesting to ask how many of them are there to find out about the result, and how many are there simply because they may be on tv.

Update 12:42 – Ho hum. Seems “The Scottish city” of Glasgow won (Thanks for the geographic tip there auntie!). So let’s all play a bit of The Proclaimers and watch politicians making fools of themselves.

Post-announcement update 12:50 – OK then… Just to make it clear, whilst I think the games will actually be a positive thing for the city, I’m really not convinced they’re worth the huge sums of money we’re talking about. The challenge for the politicians is now to ensure that we’re not left with a huge white elephant, and that it is genuinely beneficial to the people of Scotland and the UK, and not purely the sponsors, industry and those close to the bid.

Turning spectators into participants is the metric this sort of thing has to be measured by, and I really feel more could be achieved with less money than the games will need.

13:00 – On “costs spiralling out of control”, one of the studios pundits (Michael Kelly, the former Lord Provost) says “the history of these projects is that they do go out of control, so it’d be no surprise if [costs] overran“, but that “when people start moaning [they must remember] how depressed we would have been [if we'd not won the bid]“. Helpfully, “we need to ensure the money is spent effectively; it means investment in Glasgow, real investment in houses, sporting facilities, transport links” and that “it means people will get behind this and we’ll start changing the [active] culture“.

Truly marvellous stuff. Couldn’t have done any of that without the games at all, could we? And I did hear that correctly: senior people are already preparing ourselves for overspend on the already huge £288mincreasing budget for this miraculous anti-depressant? Super! I feel better already.

13:30 – Somebody just said that there will be three new five star hotels coming to Glasgow for all the people we can expect to visit. Super. Sustainable? Hmmm.

13:40 – More studio pundetry par excellence. BBC Sport’s correspondent John Beattie said “the only way to increase participation is to pay more. [The Games] won’t get us more active and healthy unless we spend yet more money in other programmes“. Michael Kelly appeared to broadly agree, and explain that this was understood by Glasgow Council. Super stuff. I agree with the talk about broadening the appeal to the less well-off parts of the city: Being healthy shouldn’t be a middle-class prerogative, but does £288mwhatever-is-currently-on-the-back-of-the-envelope make rational sense to address this?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Glasgow, Sport, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.