The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Commonwealth Sports, Katie Sadleir, has disclosed that it would be difficult for an African country to host the Games due to the high financial investment required.

According to her, the scale of the events involved in the Games is enormous, and countries on the continent are not adequately equipped to host the Commonwealth Games.

She stated that they are making efforts to explore strategies that will enable Commonwealth countries to host the event in the future.

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In an interview with the BBC, when asked about nations in the Commonwealth hosting the Games, she replied, “The answer to that is no. It had grown to be quite an expensive event. So we had already decided it was time to think about what we need to do to create an event of a size that was sustainable and that we could take around the Commonwealth.

"We did spend time doing what we would call the Games reset, which was looking at the principles that needed to be put in place to enable the Commonwealth Games to go around the Commonwealth whilst at the same time finding a replacement for 2026. We need to work with Africa to assist them, to actually help them realise their ambitions in a non-exclusive way to host the Games.”

She further added, “We had launched a new strategy basically three weeks before the Australians withdrew from the Games. One of the key things in that long-term strategy was that we wanted to take the Commonwealth Games around the Commonwealth. Our members wanted to host the Games. But because of the size and scale of the event, that was not possible.”

The 23rd Commonwealth Games are officially underway in Glasgow, running from July 23 to August 2, 2026. The event features around 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories competing for 215 gold medals across 10 core sports.

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