Welcome to African nation of England
ENGLAND is listed as an African nation in the official Commonwealth Games program in an embarrassing blunder.
Its capital is not London but Banjul, according to the glossy 130-page program which contains an official welcome from the Queen.
The nation that gave us the entire Commonwealth, not to mention the Games, is also listed as having over two million citizens – a far cry from its actual population of more than 66.5 million people.
And the program says England’s first Commonwealth Games were in 1970, when in fact it was 1930.
The errors have been revealed in the $10 program which contains welcome messages from dignitaries including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate and Commonwealth Games Federation president Louise Martin.
The program includes profiles on the 71 Commonwealth Games nations.
Publishers the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Corporation (GOLDOC) appear to have mixed up England’s profile with that of The Gambia, a tiny African nation which only rejoined the Commonwealth a few weeks before the Coast Games.
“It’s a pretty embarrassing clanger,” a Games volunteer who discovered the gaffe told the Bulletin. “This is the official program that thousands of people will buy as a keepsake and the details on the country that created the Commonwealth are wrong.”
At a Games briefing yesterday Ghana female team captain Nafisatu Umaru jokingly welcomed England to the African nations.