Elections for every position on the CGF Executive Board take place on November 11, when the organisation hosts its General Assembly in St Kitts and Nevis, where delegates will also decide whether Gold Coast, Australia, or Hambantota, Sri Lanka, will host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Robertson is currently one of two Vice-presidents, alongside Malaysia's Prince Tunku Imran, who is due to take over from retiring CGF President Mike Fennell after he was the only candidate to have put himself forward for the position when the deadline closed in August.

Robertson - who is also chairman of the CGF Marketing Committee and Glasgow 2014 Coordination Commission - is seeking his third, four-year term as CGF vice president, but faces a tough battle with Kenya's Kip Keino, England's Ian Emmerson and South Africa's Gideon Sam.

"I'm not really good at this political stuff, but I'm aiming to let the voting delegates know what I have done over the course of the last 10 to 15 years for the Commonwealth Games Federation in areas such as marketing," Robertson told insidethegames.

"I also want to let them know what I'm hoping to do for the Federation in the future in terms of working on development programmes to help things move forward over the next few years.

"Then I'll sit back and let our members decide and go by their judgement one way or the other.

"But I very much hope I can stay in this role for another four years because there are a number of things I'd still love to accomplish in this position. 

"So we'll just hope for the best."

Robertson, a former swimmer who won multiple medals at the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games in the 1970s, is highly respected within the CGF and remains the favourite of the four candidates to land one of the two vice president roles - but his three rivals boast impressive credentials.


Keino (pictured, above) is the 1968 Olympic 1500 metres champion and 1972 Olympic 3,000 metres steeplechase gold medallist, and is the current chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee, having forged a successful career in sports administration since retiring as an athlete.

Emerson is the former chairman of Commonwealth Games England, the former vice president of the International Cycling Union and the current CGF Regional vice president of Europe, a role he will relinquish at the General Assembly next month.

Meanwhile, Sam is the current President of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee.

Other CGF Executive Board positions will be more straight-forward as Scotland's Louise Martin, Barbados's Austin Sealy, Kenya's Sharad Rao and Malaysia's Dr M Jegathesan will all stand unopposed for the positions of honorary secretary, honorary treasurer, honorary legal adviser and honorary medical adviser respectively.

Suzanne Weckend-Dill, of Canada, and Nicholas Spence Lane, of New Zealand, will contest the Athletes' Representative position, while nominees for the six Regional vice president positions are:

• Europe - Chris Jenkins (Wales) and Joseph Cassar (Malta);
• Caribbean - Donald Anderson (Jamaica), Fortuna Belrose (St Lucia) and Chet Greene (Antigua and Barbuda);
• Oceania - Siosifa Takitoa Taumoepeau (Tonga) and Tapasu Leung Wai (Samoa);
• Africa - Abdoulie Touray (Gambia), unopposed;
• Americas - Kalam Azad Juman-Yassin (Guyana), unopposed;
• Asia - Hemasiri Fernando (Sri Lanka), unopposed.

The 71 Commonwealth nations and territories will cast one vote each to decide the Board positions before casting a single vote apiece to decide between Gold Coast or Hambantota to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The announcement of host city, at the St Kitts Marriot Resort, will be Fennell's (pictured, above) last act as CGF President after 17 years in charge and he will then step down to become a Life vice president of the organisation.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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