Glasgow to stage 2014 Commonwealth Games
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Your support makes all the difference.Britain's run of success in securing major sporting events was maintained yesterday as Glasgow earned the right to stage the 2014 Commonwealth Games with a clear victory over its only rival, the Nigerian capital of Abuja.
The 2010 Ryder Cup is already destined for Wales and due a return to British shores four years later at Gleneagles. London will host the 2012 Olympics and the Rugby Football Union intends to bid for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The Football Association has officially announced that it will bid to host the 2018 Fifa World Cup and a year later the cricket version will again be held in England.
Welcoming yesterday's result, the prime minister Gordon Brown said: "It's looking like a great sporting decade for our country."
The Glasgow bid secured 47 votes against Abuja's 24 at the Commonwealth Games Federation's general assembly in Colombo to decide the location of the 20th edition of this quadrennial event and set off noisy celebrations both in the Sri Lankan capital and the victorious city itself.
Politicians, sporting personalities and supporters had gathered in Glasgow's Old Fruit Market to await a result which means that Glasgow will now emulate Edinburgh, which held the Commonwealth Games in 1970 and 1986. The Nigerian bid team had concentrated on the emotional appeal of securing what would have been the first Commonwealth Games to be held in Africa, but the modern city which replaced Lagos as Nigeria's capital in 1991, lost out to a city which, according to the presentation made by First Minister Alex Salmond, already had more than 70 per cent of the facilities existing "in bricks and mortar".
The presentation included a short film featuring misty lochs, sweeping glens, caber-tossing and the T In The Park music festival and voiced over by former James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery. Glasgow was duly licensed to hold a Games. The 19th Games are scheduled for New Delhi, India, in 2010, but Scots are already looking eagerly beyond that horizon.
Scotland football manager Alex McLeish, whose team will play their crucial Euro 2008 qualifier against Italy at Hampden Park in a week's time, reacted with pride at his home city's achievement, describing the news as "spine-tingling". He added: "The feel-good factor continues, there is a power in this city and in this country that we cannot ignore."
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