The Commonwealth Games Federation’s Chief Executive Officer, and former Chief Executive of Glasgow 2014 Ltd., David Grevemberg, has been appointed by Her Majesty The Queen as an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

The announcement was made by the Commonwealth Games Federation on Monday morning, just before Grevemberg spoke on the opening panel discussion of Host City 2015 conference in Glasgow. 

The honour is conferred in recognition of services to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. 

In a statement issued on Monday morning – just before his arrival at Host City 2015 – Grevemberg said: “The XX Commonwealth Games were a defining moment for Glasgow, Scotland and the Commonwealth Games Movement. 

“Whilst it is incredibly humbling to be recognised for my contribution, the successes and impacts of the Games were only made possible by the hard work and support of our partners, participants, staff and citizens. 

“I would like to thank Her Majesty for this honour, and look forward to an inspiring, impactful future for the Commonwealth Games Movement, a powerful symbol of the flourishing, modern Commonwealth and its citizens”.

David Grevemberg CBE spoke on the opening panel discussion of Host City 2015 conference on the subject of “How Events and Cities Innovate to Thrive”.

Commonwealth Games Federation President, Louise Martin CBE also spoke at Host City 2015. 

“This special honour is testimony to the success and continued legacy of the Best Games Ever, as Glasgow and its people delivered one of the standout performances in Commonwealth sporting history,” she said in the CGF statement. 

“I congratulate David on this honour, as we reflect on many happy memories of the Games and move forward with our ambitious plans to deliver Transformation 2022 with our members and stakeholders”.

Born in 1972 in Louisiana, USA, David was a former wrestler, coach and administrator, before taking up post in 1999 as Executive Director of Sport and International Federation Relations at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), headquartered in Bonn, Germany. 

He moved to Scotland to lead the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee in 2009 and still lives near Glasgow with his family. He joined the Commonwealth Games Federation as Chief Executive in November 2014.

The honour is a recognition of the transformational power of Commonwealth sport and its recent positive impact on Glasgow.

Speaking about last year’s HOST CITY conference, Grevemberg said: “I found it enlightening. The calibre of people that attended and spoke was excellent; it was excellent to meet so many experts with a shared perspective and passion and belief that the hosting of major events is a force for good.” 

Contracts totalling more than US$1bn (£669m) were awarded in relation to hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Glasgow City Council announced on Friday.

The majority of these “Tier One” contracts were awarded to companies and organisations from Glasgow, which won over US$636 (£423m) of business. 

More than three quarters (US$766m, or 510m) of the total value of contracts was awarded to Scottish firms. 

As part of regeneration initiatives in Glasgow, Games-related contracts included community benefit clauses that created employment and business opportunities for local people and companies and led to the long-term unemployed and school leavers winning places on high-profile construction projects across the city, the Council said.

"It's enormously heartening to read these hugely impressive figures about the jobs, apprenticeships and contracts gained by Glasgow people and businesses as a result of our Games,” said councillor Gordon Matheson, Leader of Glasgow City Council.

“We also retain the skills, facilities and enhanced international reputation that ensures we will continue to attract world-class events in the future.

"The world knows that Glasgow delivered the best Commonwealth Games there have ever been. But the Games were always about much more than 11 spectacular days of sport and cultural festival, however wonderful and memorable. What matters most are the lasting benefits for the people of Glasgow.”

In the run-up to the Games, the council and its partners engaged with the city’s communities and businesses through the Get Ready Glasgow programme, advising on Games-time operations and how local firms would maximise the opportunities available.

Glasgow City Council also provided supported for a huge range of organisations working on the Games through one-to-one sessions, specialist seminars and mass ‘Meet the Buyer’ events.

To bid for a Games-related contract, firms and organisations had to register on the Glasgow Business Portal. Over 22,500 registrations were made on Portal, with over 4,400 from Glasgow. 

To ensure the long term sustainable legacy of these outcomes, the Glasgow Business Portal merged with the Scottish Government’s Public Contract Scotland (PCS) during November 2014, with the merger providing more efficient service for suppliers by ensuring all opportunities and sub-contracts for public bodies are advertised on one dedicated site. 

The city council says it is now seen as a model in awarding public sector contracts.  The £1.13bn Glasgow City Region City Deal, signed in August 2014, is viewed as another chance to deliver significant community benefit for Glasgow and the surrounding areas. 

The council says its ambitious Commonwealth Apprenticeship Initiative has found Modern Apprenticeship places for almost 3,600 Glasgow school leavers over the past five years.

784 graduates have gained employment through the council’s Commonwealth Graduate Fund, 917 previously unemployed people living in the city have secured jobs through the Commonwealth Jobs Fund, and 321 people found jobs through the Commonwealth Youth Fund.

The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games has topped a UK ranking of the impact of the “buzz” of sports events in 2014, the SportIndex 2015 Annnual Report. 

"It's such a fantastic thank you to everyone who put such energy and effort into the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games to know that people across the UK ranked us as their number one positive world sporting experience of 2014,” said David Grevemberg, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation and former chief executive of Glasgow 2014.

While the ranking does not discriminate between British and international events, those that were hosted in Britain or featured strong performances by British sportspeople inevitably created the biggest buzz. 

According to the findings of the report, the FIFA World Cup in Brazil was only the thirteenth most positive sporting event of 2014 for British consumers.

The UK, like several other countries around the world, broke record viewing figures for the opening matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. However, audiences in the UK quickly lost interest after England’s exit at the group stage. 

The authors of the report also cite the Luis Suarez biting incident as negatively impacting British interest in the World Cup.

The report found that Wimbledon created biggest buzz for an annual event, despite a below par performance by British star Andy Murray. 

The FA Cup was the most widely enjoyed football event, with its highest buzz score ever.

The Formula One British Grand Prix had the biggest growth in buzz, on the back of British star Lewis Hamilton’s winning performance. 

The SportsIndex 2015 Annual Report, powered by YouGov, analyses the levels of overall recent UK public awareness and news sentiment for 50 leading domestic and international sports events. It measures “peak buzz score”, the net difference between the amount of respondents hearing positive news and those hearing negative news.

“What a great way to mark exactly six months on from an Opening Ceremony which launched a festival of sport and culture which people across the Scotland, the UK, Commonwealth and beyond could feel part of,” said Grevemberg.

“Six months on, the athletes of the Commonwealth who competed, the thousands of volunteers and staff who delivered the Games and the people of Glasgow and Scotland who were the warmest of hosts can feel hugely proud of their achievements, the pleasure they shared and the special place they've won in the nation's hearts."

The Sports Consultancy’s ability to offer commercial services to rights holders has been boosted significantly with the appointment of key figure in Glasgow 2014’s sponsorship programme.

Marc Hope has spent the last four years with Sports Marketing and Management, where he was embedded in the Organising Committee of Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games playing a pivotal role on the successful achievement of almost 50 sponsors across three tiers. 

He will lead on a significant investment into The Sports Consultancy’s rights marketing business, offering commercial services to rights holder and event clients. 

“Rights marketing is a core part of our DNA, it’s where we originated and it will build and augment our strong commercial focus as well as add depth to our commercial and strategic consulting services to government and venue clients,” said co-managing director Angus Buchanan.

“In Marc we have found someone who shares our vision and with whom we can work with to build a prominent rights marketing practice. The results he has achieved in his career to date, most recently in his role selling commercial rights for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, firmly establishes Marc as one of the leading practitioners in the industry.”

Before working on Glasgow 2014, Marc spent a decade with Fasttrack, which later became part of CSM, where he led the rights marketing team over a range of Olympic sports and major international events headed by UK Athletics. 

Marc landed the multi-year title sponsorship deals for the London Youth Games (LYG), for which he remains vice chairman. He also served as a non-executive board director of GB Taekwondo during their London Olympic cycle 2010-2013, which saw the sport achieve Olympic gold.

Marc will be working closely with Buchanan and his co-founder Robert Datnow in developing the rights marketing practice. 

“I have followed with great interest how Angus and Robert have developed The Sports Consultancy into one of the leading consultancies operating in the sports industry today,” said Hope. 

“It is a privilege to join their innovative team and to have the opportunity to build a new rights marketing division harnessing the company’s reputation and contacts along with its existing in-house commercial and legal experience.”

Further appointments of senior brand consultants and rights sales specialists are expected to follow.

This year’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games was on the receiving end of widespread praise from athletes, the media and sports administrators alike, with Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper even hailing it as “the standout Games in the history of the movement.”

71 teams and nearly 5,000 athletes took part in the Games, which was held across 13 venues. The Games went off smoothly and was heralded as a success with large attendances at every event and 1.2 million tickets sold.

Vice Chair of the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, Louise Martin, has been a part of Glasgow 2014 from the very beginning. She was the first woman to be Chair of Commonwealth Games Scotland (CGS) and was awarded the CBE in 2003 for services to the Games.

“It feels absolutely fantastic and to see the fruition from the idea, to the bid, to winning the bid, to where we are now, it’s the journey that we planned meticulously and it’s worked,” she told HOST CITY in Glasgow.

“From the bid phase, which we launched in 2004, to actual delivery, in that time we managed to make sure that every single venue was finished two years prior to today. So in 2012 all our venues were finished, operational and had been used by the general public. So that in itself, to me, is worth its weight in gold.”

The Commonwealth Games has been struggling to attract potential host cities in recent years, with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) calling an emergency meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January as no member country had entered a bid for the 2022 Games just two months prior to the deadline. The extensive list of controversies surrounding the 2010 Delhi Games and the huge cost involved with hosting a Games have been some of the reasons cited for the lack of interest, especially considering the Commonwealth includes some of world’s least economically developed nations.

However, Martin is overwhelmingly positive about the event and believes the way in which Glasgow has been successfully delivered can provide a lesson for future Games and may encourage more nations to become involved with hosting. “One of the reasons we bid for this is that we’re a small country, five million people and we wanted to demonstrate that small countries can host these things and stay in budget,” she says.

“We delivered a phenomenal opening ceremony and we were on budget, really on the target, and it wasn’t over the top. We didn’t have all the stuff flying around the sky; we kept it culturally towards what we are, this fun-loving, cheeky nation. The athletes enjoyed the ceremony, they were central to the whole thing and this is what we wanted to do the whole way through.”

This year’s Games has been almost universally praised and Martin believes this have been down to a mixture of Glasgow’s welcoming atmosphere and the work done by the organising committee to create a slickly run Games with the best facilities. She says: “I just think because it’s in Scotland, it’s the friendly Games and the family Games, we all speak the same language so therefore there are no hidden feelings, where we see people we see friends, we’re all one big happy family.

“The way these 15,000 Clyde-siders have been working and the way the Glasgow public and Scottish public have just taken this to heart as well. It’s a combination of facilities being ready, the people in Glasgow, the workforce: it’s one big jigsaw and its come together.”

The next Commonwealth Games will be held in Gold Coast City, Australia in 2018 whilst the 2022 edition of the Games will be hosted either by the South African city of Durban or the Canadian city of Edmonton. With the announcement of the winning bid less than a year away, both cities have been upping the ante in order to secure the Games.

“My advice would be, know what you want to do, know what you want to deliver, ensure that your plans are absolutely in place and your budget is set before you put your bid in – because once you’ve got your bidding document, it makes it easy in the transition from bidding to the organising committee and then you can start to move and do it very quickly,” says Martin.

Shortly before the start of the Glasgow Games, teams from Durban and Edmonton visited the city to present at the Commonwealth Games Federation General Assembly. Durban put on an in-depth presentation, utilising government ministers and videos referencing the late Nelson Mandela whilst Edmonton took the approach of a simple address by the bid chairman. Edmonton’s lack of presentation led some sections of the media pronouncing Durban as the more serious bid but Martin disagrees.

“Whether they are bullish or not you’ll have to wait and see, it’s what they actually put down on paper and what they actually can produce for the evaluation commission that counts. The city that will be chosen will be the one that can deliver a really, really good Games to the standard that we’re looking for and as far as I’m concerned the standard that’s here: it’s simple, it’s enjoyable, it’s affordable and it’s doable.”

Glasgow 2014 has also made a fine example of how to maximise the host nation’s sporting performance on home soil, an important factor for many host cities. Scotland achieved a record 19 gold medals in Glasgow, placing them fourth on the medals table.

“We’ve left nothing to chance,” says Martin. “We’ve been working with these athletes for the last five years, with all the coaches and all the scientists behind them and each individual athlete has had a special programme, nothing has been left to chance. So the delivery of Team Scotland at the moment has been planned and we have actually achieved what we’ve set out to achieve.”

The Rugby Sevens tournament at Glasgow 2014 was named best Rugby event of 2014 by industry experts on Wednesday at Rugby Expo 2014. 

The event beat off competition from the Women’s Rugby World Cup in August, hosted by France and the Super League Magic Weekend in May which featured seven matches and 14 elite teams competing at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester.

“Rugby Sevens as a sport was born in Scotland, so it’s really wonderful to see Glasgow and Scotland’s Commonwealth Games showcase for the sport recognised as the top rugby event this year,” said David Grevemberg, Chief Executive of Glasgow 2014. 

Glasgow’s two-day extravaganza at Ibrox stadium saw 16 of the world’s top Rugby Sevens sides battle it out for Commonwealth Gold in front of 171,000 people – a new global record tournament audience for the sport.

Around 192 athletes contested 45 matches over two days of fierce competition which saw South Africa clinch Gold for the first time in Commonwealth Games history, beating New Zealand, winners of every previous Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens Gold medal since the sport was introduced to the Games in 1998.

“The two days of Rugby Sevens at Ibrox were remarkable and memorable not just for the incredible sport but also for the sheer energy and enthusiasm generated by the crowds. We’re really proud to have played our part in sharing Rugby Sevens with new audiences,” said Grevemberg. 

“This award is for the amazing athletes and the wonderful crowds which supported them as well as the world-beating experience of Rugby Seven they all helped create at Glasgow 2014.”

Rugby Expo 2014 is an important gathering for the industry which is supported by leading bodies including Premiership Rugby, RFU, SRU, WRU, Pro12 and Championship. 

David Grevemberg, who is also the CEO designate of the Commonwealth Games Federation, is speaking at HOST CITY Bid to Win conference on 28th October about “Winning for the Future” alongside city event leaders from Beijing, Barcelona and Istanbul.

The council claim the ‘Glasgow Legacy Story’ has already made impacts on Glasgow’s economy and infrastructure as well as boosting sports participation in the city. 550 jobs have been created directly through the Games and 4,500 young people have been put into work or training due to Games related investment, according to the council.

The development of Glasgow’s East End was also highlighted by the council and the 700 houses and flats that have been built as part of it as well as the £700 million invested in the city’s transport infrastructure. 

As well as the effects on the local economy the Games have brought with them a participation legacy to Glasgow. The council boasts an 130% increase in cycling in the last 5 years thanks to a £10 million spend on 13.6km of walking and cycle networks as well as a city-wide mass cycle hire scheme. 

"The Games have undoubtedly seen a huge surge in Glaswegians taking part in sport and we're fortunate to have some outstanding clubs, offering a wide range of sports and activities for all ages and abilities,” said Councillor Gordon Matheson, Leader of Glasgow City Council.

"To further build on this success, we have invested £198 million in sports facilities across the city including those currently serving as Games venues since 2009. During this time, attendances across all of Glasgow Life's sports facilities have surged to 6.6 million.”

"We want to host the best ever Games, but I've always said we will have failed if we don't leave a lasting legacy for Glaswegians."

According to Glasgow 2014, 96% of tickets for the Games were sold and a 91% satisfaction rate was recorded from Games spectators who watched on as 142 Commonwealth records and nine world records were broken over 261 events in 18 sports.

Organisers also released figures demonstrating the social media buzz around the event with 3.5million public mentions of the Games, 500,000 social media followers and 450,000 downloads of the Games app.

A number of the athletes who took part in the Games have also praised the event. Talking to HOST CITY at Ibrox stadium, Trinidad and Tobago rugby sevens star David Gokool said: “Glasgow is like my home now, I’m comfortable, everything is fine and I love the people. Everything is comfortable, I can’t complain at all.”

Gokool also praised the high turnout at the rugby sevens tournament and the atmosphere inside Ibrox stadium, saying: “I’m very happy to be playing in front of such a loud crowd, it’s a big thing for me. I love the crowd, they make me feel energised.”

Commonwealth Games Scotland Chairman, Michael Cavanagh, praised the way in which the Organising Committee was able to fill every venue whilst Glasgow 2014 Chief Executive, David Grevemberg, said: “The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games has made history as the best Commonwealth Games ever, setting a new Gold Standard for the Commonwealth sports movement, new benchmarks for event delivery and receiving universal accolades for a proud Host City and its people for the joyous enthusiasm with which they embraced athletes and visitors during Scotland’s biggest-ever sporting and cultural festival.”

Now the Games has come to close organisers will be focusing on the legacy of the Games. “The Games may be over, but the story of the Games most certainly is not,” said Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games and Sport Shona. “We must continue to work to ensure that a lasting legacy is created from the Games and is something all of Scotland benefits from.”