After recently entering an exclusive negotiations process for the rights to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games, the Victorian Government has denied the request from the Tasmanian Government to co-host the event.

This comes after the Tasmanian Government expressed their interest to host the Games and said they would be open to co-hosting the Games with Victoria who was originally suggested to host the event by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).

After Victoria was announced to have entered exclusive negotiations with the CGF, Tasmanian Premier, Peter Gutwein, said he was “disappointed” he was not informed Victoria had entered exclusive negotiations before the news was revealed to the media.

Gutwein also said the state may hope for hosting large-scale events for sports such as rowing, mountain biking, or cricket instead of major multi-sport events.

“Obviously there are training camps, there are acclimatisation visits for the multitude of countries that might wish to come in the future,” Gutwein said.

It was later revealed the Victorian Government’s agreement with the CGF and Commonwealth Games Australia (CGA) had a confidentiality agreement involved.

Discussing the co-hosting opportunity and Tasmania’s bid process, Victorian minister for sport and major events, Martin Pakula, told the ABC Tasmania’s involvement in hosting the Games was highly unlikely.

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Pakula said.

“Tasmania so far has done no more than run a flag up the pole and say this is something we’d be interested to talk about.

“What we have is an agreement to hold the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, predominantly regional Victoria, and that’s what we’ll be focused on,” he said.

After Tasmania’s initial push to host the 2026 edition of the Commonwealth Games, a number of key stakeholders have revealed they were unaware of the Tasmanian Government’s hopes to host the event.

The Tasmanian arm of Commonwealth Games Australia has had its president, Brendan Hanigan, say: “I was ware there were some closed-door discussions going on from involvement with the national Commonwealth Games Australia but I wasn’t quite sure if Tasmania was in that, but it looks like it was.”

“Maybe our role for these Games is to try and put our hand up and say, let’s have some training camps, let’s welcome some of the countries out of the northern hemisphere winter to acclimatise in Tasmania before the Games,” Hanigan said.

Potential hosts of key events in regional Victoria, Shepparton mayor and greater Victoria bid task force member, Kim O’Keefe, told the ABC she was unaware of the Tasmanian Government’s hopes to co-host the event.

“I hadn’t heard anything about their interest in the Commonwealth Games,” O’Keefe said.

“I asked my comms teams if they’d heard anything as well but, no, all pretty new.

“I’m really interested in hearing what they’ve got to say in regard to what they think could work.

“I’m really unsure what they’re hoping to achieve, but I’m happy to listen to that,” she said.