 at this point to save the event.' One of the solutions that has been suggested is a financial restructuring of the event to make it 'much more modest' and 'not on the lines of the Olympic Games'. Mr Downer, who attended the 2018 Gold Coast Games as well as the 2014 Glasgow event, said that major Commonwealth countries are disillusioned and that Canada and Australia have 'substantially scaled back their funding' to Secretary General Baroness Scotland's office. He said: 'It cost the UK £1.5 billion to put on the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, so it's clearly going to be very hard to raise that sort of money. 'Because the Commonwealth doesn't mean as much to people as it once did...the governments - particularly provincial governments - will be less willing to spend huge amounts of money on the Games.' Alberta had not been awarded the Games, but was merely mulling over whether to submit an offer, whereas the CGF is scrambling to find a replacement for Victoria in three years'){kind=link}
Event faces crisis as monarch does not have the same ‘aura’ as his mother who ‘held the event together’
The King cannot evoke the same enthusiasm for the Commonwealth Games as the late Queen, a former Australian diplomat has warned after a second potential host nation pulled out.
Alexander Downer, who served as his country’s high commissioner to the UK, said the Canadian province of Alberta’s withdrawal plans for a 2030 Games bid was disastrous coming just weeks after Australian state Victoria withdrew as confirmed host for 2026.
He told The Telegraph: “The Commonwealth revolved very much around the [late] Queen and I used to argue that if it hadn’t been for [her], it’s hard to believe the Commonwealth would have held together.
“And it’s not that anybody has a problem with the King… but he doesn’t have the same aura that the [late] Queen had about her, yet.”