Bidding Games: the game behind Malaysia’s Commonwealth Games Abstract: Malaysia’s bid to host the 1998 Commonwealth Games on one level represented a highly visible component of the Malaysian government’s publicly articulated attempts to unify a nation, but meanwhile, a very different macro-political game was underway: one to give voice to those nations in the Commonwealth from the developing world, and to revitalise the Commonwealth itself. This study maps a journey that culminated in Kuala Lumpur being chosen to host the XVI Commonwealth Games, a decision not coincidentally predated by the failure of New Delhi to win the rights to the 1994 Commonwealth Games. 1.0 Introduction: Once the sole preserve of the West—primarily due to the costs involved, the infrastructure requirements, and the need for political stability 1 —the past two decades have witnessed a marked increase in the number of major international sporting events located outside the developed world. The case of Delhi’s hosting in 2010 of the Commonwealth Games, a second tier international sporting event formerly known as the British Commonwealth Games, and before that, the British Empire Games, was the latest of a series of major events to take place in the developing world, notably the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the 2008 Olympic Games, the ICC Cricket World Cup (1987, 1996, 2003, 2007); 2 the Rugby World Cup (1995); 3 and the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games (1998) 4 . The following case study examines this latter event, which was closely followed, not coincidentally, by the first Malaysian Grand Prix the following year. In Malaysia, as elsewhere in the developing world, the decision to bid for the century-old Commonwealth Games arose from an increasing appreciation of the political importance of sport beyond the sporting arena– particularly with regards to national development strategies. 5 The literature examining how sporting events are deployed for purposes beyond sport per se is extensive. There is a copious literature examining the aggregate economic effects (Crompton, 1995; Hall, 1992; Lee and Taylor, 2005; Mules and Faulkner, 1996), infrasturctural changes in host nations or cities (Coates and Humphreys, 1999; Muller, 2010), landscapes (Hiller, 2000), tourism (Fainstein and Gladstone, 1999; Sassen and Roost, 1999), and political (Waitt, 2001; Zhou and Ap, 2009 ). Scholars have argued the case for sporting mega-events as contingents of globalisation (Roche, 2000) and instruments of government policy to attract foreign investment (Kearns and Philo, 1993; Rogerson, 1999) as well as various forms of political or social significance (e.g. McIntosh, 1963). After a bidding process which had lasted two years, Kuala Lumpur was selected to stage the XVI Commonwealth Games at a meeting of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth Games Federation in Barcelona (Spain) in July 1992. Behind the bid for the Games, there had been an intense period of 1 It was also all in Europe and North America that the expositions of the industrial revolution occurred - themselves large scale international events precursors to international sporting displays. 2 Held across the Indian sub-continent, Southern Africa and the Caribbean, the ICC Cricket World Cup was held in the following locations: 1987: India/Pakistan. 1996: Pakistan/India/Sri Lanka 2003: South Africa/ Zimbabwe/Kenya. 2007: West Indies. Further, in 2011 the ICC Cricket World Cup will be held across India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 3 Held in South Africa in 1995. 4 Held in Malaysia in 1998. 5 Although Cape Town's bid for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games was unsuccessful, it brought into focus the importance major international sporting events in national strategies. Of the record eleven cities bidding to host the event, four came from outside the developed ‘core’ of the Olympic world: Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro and (the aforementioned) Cape Town.