'We were ready to host'

"We can't be duped, we can't be manipulated, we can't be threatened."

With these words, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula said the government wanted to host the Commonwealth Games, but that would have meant being forced to pay over the odds to do so.

At a press conference in Durban yesterday, Mbalula - a supporter of the Durban 2022 games - said that increased demands from the Commonwealth Games Federation meant the sporting spectacle was out of the nation's financial reach.

The Department of Sport and Recreation's director-general, Alec Moemi, had earlier confirmed that the country had spent R118-million on the bid to host the games.

Mbalula said the government had the nation 's best interests at heart. "Any loss of money is regrettable. Don't take it that R118-million lost means nothing, it means a lot.

"We went out of our way to secure the games - but not at all costs. We can't say to government that it must spend money it did not have.

"This is not 2010. This is 2017. We're much wiser. We can't be getting into this with our eyes wide open knowing that, in the long term, it will hurt the country and the economy."

He said South Africa was "cautious" when it bid for the games.

"It's not like when we were going with soccer [2010 World Cup] when we built stadiums we did not plan and there were cost overruns. We can't be duped, we can't be manipulated, we can't be threatened. We know what we want," he said.

"I was definitely not going to sign any agreement on behalf of government that I knew, very well, we couldn't afford."

Moemi later said government "can't be bullied any more. We aren't a vacuum cleaner that sucks up everything that comes our way. We choose very carefully."

The Commonwealth Games Federation bosses confirmed on Monday that Durban had lost the games. Citing "significant departures" from the original agreement, the federation said it would begin to find an alternative host nation.