The Gay Games, in the air: a clause allows the organization to be taken away from Valencia in the face of the City Council's decision to reserve control
Holding the Gay Games en Valencia in 2026 there is the air. The decision of the municipal government to directly manage the organization of the event through the Municipal Sports Foundation (FDM) has not only created unrest among the groups LGTBI but they can cause the International Gay Games Federation execute a clause of the contract that reserves the right to change location if the organizational structure is not considered satisfactory or does not correspond to the final objective of the event.
La Government Board approved last Friday the structure of the organizing committee, the «collegiate body that will carry out the monitoring, promotion and control» of the games, which will be chaired by the mayor of Valencia, The popular Maria Jose Catala, or the councilor to whom she delegates, while the vice presidency will be another of the councilors from her Government team, made up of 13 councilors from the PP and four of Vox.
There will be six members that will hold the Generalitat, the Provincial Council of Valencia, the València Diversitat Foundation, the Samarucs club, the Visit Valencia Foundation and the FDM who, in addition, received the commission from the organization «of the sporting aspects with the allocation of means that are required for this«.
Change in the roadmap
This decision, adopted after months of consultations, means changing the roadmap presented to the International Federation for the candidacy promoted by the groups LGTBI with the support of the previous Government team.
The idea was to maintain the philosophy of these games, with sporting but also cultural implications, and were organized by the associations, without direct intervention from the institutions. Hence the decision was made to create the Valencia Diversitat Foundation as an organizing entity, with public administrations among the patrons of honor.
However, the change of Government occurred before the City Council transferred that organizational responsibility and the current team assures that it found legal and Intervention objections for the complete derivation of some responsibilities that the City Council had acquired. The origin of these warnings were the problems that arose around the management of the Capital of Design, which was referred to an association and is being investigated by the Anti-Fraud Agency.
That is why the order, based on legal warnings, was to keep the organization under municipal control. For months, the Town hall, through the FDM, and Valencia Diversitat Different drafts have been crossed on how to form the organizing committee, but it has been impossible to reach an agreement. «We have not found the formula«, they assure El Mundo sources knowledgeable about the negotiation.
Distrust due to the presence of Vox
The key is the mutual distrust between the parties. On the one hand, the council does not move from what they consider to be the obligation that secretaries and auditors have transmitted to it: to maintain the economic supervision of the event as the ultimate responsible party.
However, it would be possible to assign the execution of all the activities included in the Bid Book to Valencia Diversitat. This option was transferred to the different groups, which did not contemplate this option, because if the final budgetary word is the City Council and any of its decisions can be revocable, there could be activities that end up not being able to be carried out.
They do not lose sight of the presence of Vox in the government team, who has never wanted the Gay Games and that could try to torpedo or censor them. To their alternative proposals, however, they never received a response until last Friday, minutes before the Governing Board, they received a call confirming that the organization would be in the hands of the FDM.
