Editorial: For the Games, the game is up

Opinion

It is inconceivable that the 19th Commonwealth Games, which are scheduled to open next Sunday, will not take place.

Too much time and money has been invested and too many reputations are on the line for the plug to be pulled now.

But the difficulties that have plagued the Delhi event demand a serious re-evaluation of the four-yearly celebrations.

The decision to award the 2010 games to India was driven as much by optimistic aspiration as good sense.

The hope was that passing the baton to a developing country would issue a challenge that it would rise to.

Unfortunately that has not turned out to be the case.

As recently as late August, reports from Delhi painted a picture of a city in chaos: dirty, mosquito-ridden venue worksites; roads blocked by construction work; landscaping projects abandoned.

Making matters worse were allegations - and revelations - of mismanagement and corner-cutting. It will be a miracle if nothing else falls down like that footbridge.

The world's second-most populous nation is home to people of great ingenuity, enterprise and diligence. But it is also beset by intractable problems. In GDP, it ranks at number 11, just behind Canada and ahead of Australia; but in per capita terms, it keeps company with some of the basket-case economies of Africa.

Much of the infrastructure is ageing and unreliable. The civil service and business worlds are riddled with corruption, which is regarded as a fact of life. To that list of concerns must be added political instability.

The stain of terrorism seeps into the fabric of Indian life from neighbouring Pakistan, Maoist insurgents exercise some degree of control in as much as a third of the country and Islamic extremism remains a constant threat.

Against all expectations, the competition venues seem more or less ready and most of the discontent has focused on accommodation. But seen in the context of the wider picture, it is scarcely surprising that some teams have considered withdrawing.

It is not that they are being prissy about living conditions: with all the dangers and difficulties attendant on the Games, it was always going to be incumbent on India to create a welcoming and secure environment.

This it has failed to do - and it bears saying that it probably never could have.

But the Games present a wider problem. Like their larger, stronger sibling, the Olympics, they pose on host countries debts that take a generation or more to clear, for facilities of marginal utility after the event.

Even though the Olympics beggared Greece and seem likely to do something similar to a near-bankrupt Britain, they represent the pinnacle of sporting endeavour and it is impossible to imagine the world without them.

Yet the time may not be that far off when it is worth considering locating them in one purpose-built venue with the capital and running costs shared pro-rata between participating nations.

As for the Commonwealth Games, the future must be more circumscribed still. In the short term, developing nations must be ruled out as host countries and it is possibly time for the list of sports to be pared back.

Even more fundamentally, it may be worth considering whether the Games have a future at all. Increasingly, elite athletes avoid them, to concentrate on world or regional championships of greater significance.

Like the British Empire in whose name these Games were established 80 years ago, they are beginning to look like an expensive anachronism.