Commonwealth Games gaffe lists England as a tiny African nation in official program
The capital is listed as, not London, but Banjul, in the glossy 130-page program which contains an official welcome from the Queen
ENGLAND is listed as an African nation in the official Commonwealth Games program in an embarrassing blunder ahead of tonight’s opening ceremony.
The capital is listed as, not London, but Banjul, in the glossy 130-page program which contains an official welcome from the Queen.
The nation that gave us the entire Commonwealth is also listed as having over two million citizens — while its actual population is more than 66.5 million people.
And the program says England’s first Commonwealth Games were in 1970, when in fact it was 1930.
The glaring errors have been revealed in the £7 program ($10) which includes welcome messages from global leaders.
The program includes profiles on the 71 Commonwealth Games nations.
Publishers, Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Corporation (GOLDOC), appear to have mixed up England’s profile with that of Gambia, a tiny African nation which only rejoined the Commonwealth a few weeks before the Games.
Its capital is Banjul and it has a population of 2,051,363 people.
A Games volunteer who discovered the gaffe said: “It’s a pretty embarrassing clanger.”
“This is the official program that thousands of people will buy as a keepsake and the details on the country that created the Commonwealth are wrong.
“If GOLDOC knew about the mistake, it must have been too late or too expensive to reprint the magazine.”
GOLDOC have been approached for comment.
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