The Games that never were: everyone loses

“We had actually thought you would have been more than happy that we had stood up as a country to say we can’t be bullied by international federations anymore.”

Really? Are we supposed to be happy about the R118 million that was flushed down the drain, or the embarrassment of flopping an event without ever getting it off the ground?

Sport and Recreation SA director-general Alec Moemi certainly feels they’ve made the right decision by refusing to play ball with the Commonwealth Games Federation, and a row of like-minded politicians joined the chorus this week, some of them seemingly expecting us to stick posters of them on our office walls so we can give them a daily high-five.

But there’s nothing for fans, athletes or the general public to be happy about. If anything, they should all be pretty hacked off.

After years spent planning bid proposals and hosting international inspections, budget discussions and logistical debates, the Durban 2022 Games should not have been left hanging in the air this week, let alone scratched completely.

Eighteen months after winning the bid, the media should be focusing on the progress of facility upgrades and the early stages of athlete preparation.

Instead, we are now penning our last notes on the Games that never were.

A Games that never had an organising committee, never signed a hosting agreement, and was never

Wesley Bo on

really a Games. It was never really anything.

To spend over R100 million on nothing, regardless of where that money is found in a struggling economy, is wasteful in the highest degree.

The benefits of the Games which had been predicted in the long-term, including billions of rand towards the nation’s GDP and the investment of athletes across numerous sport codes, have evaporated due to an argument around financial commit- ments which should have been signed and sealed early last year.

Ahead of the 2010 Games in Delhi, there was talk of the host city losing the rights, and when athletes arrived for the showpiece they were still not finished preparing facilities and accommodation.

But Delhi continued to drive forward and simply got on with it, and considering all the problems they faced, they managed to present a decent spectacle, ultimately living up to their end of the agreement.

For a city which had the benefit of existing world-class infrastructure, including a stadium used for the Fifa World Cup just seven years ago, hosting the same Games which Delhi had managed to pull off should have been well within Durban’s reach.

The 2022 showpiece should have been a big step forward in proving the coastal city had the potential to host the Olympic Games.

Instead, it had the opposite effect, and as sports minister Fikile Mbalula said this week, a multi-sport Games will now be a dream for a future generation.

Durban 2022 was nothing but a waste of money and time, with stakeholders refusing to commit to the financial investment.

Under no circumstances should those involved with the failure receive a round of applause, and it’s more than a bit cheeky to expect anyone to be pleased about such wasteful expenditure.

There is absolutely nothing to show for the Games that never were, and there’s no reason to be happy about that.