Mike Hooper, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), rejected allegations of ballot rigging in the selection of the host city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, calling them “absolutely ludicrous”, reports the Sunday Herald.
Glasgow was chosen earlier this month over Abuja by a vote of 47 to 24 to host the event. Abuja officials are claming racism and “British imperialism” for Glasgow’s success.
Among the criticisms were comments by Nigeria’s vice president Goodluck Jonathan who attended the final presentation of the bid cities in Colombo and said, “the Commonwealth Games Federation is not kind to Africa. They were unfair to the Nigerian and African bid. There was no reason to lose”.
In an article published last week on an international sports website, Mitchell Obi, head of media for Abuja’s bid, said that voting irregularities may have influenced the outcome and there was an “apparent lack of transparency that marked the voting and announcement of the bid”.
He also questioned that the votes were immediately destroyed after the results were announced, and that the votes were counted in a separate room far from the assembly hall where voting took place without observers of the two bid cities in attendance.
Hooper told the Sunday Herald, “everything was conducted very openly on camera. Obi is entitled to his point of view but that’s the way we have always conducted our votes and we have no plans to change”.
He added there was one of three independent scrutineers and the claim that the ballots were “hurriedly” destroyed was wrong saying “in fact I had them in my case for several days after the vote”.
Rob Shorthouse, spokesman for Glasgow 2014, described the complaints as “very disappointing. To suggest that there was anything wrong with the way the vote was conducted is well wide of the mark”.