LONDON, March 24 Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Games, said on Monday that next year`s Commonwealth Games must be held as scheduled in New Delhi despite concerns regarding security in India.

This year`s edition of the Indian Premier League is being moved out of the country after the Indian government said security forces needed to be focused on the general elections scheduled for April-May, which clash with the tournament.

But Coe, one of Britain`s greatest middle-distance runners and the 1,500-metre gold medallist at both the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and in Los Angeles four years` later, said “This is the world all big events live in. This was always going to be a challenge for India to organise.

“The Commonwealth Games went to New Delhi for absolutely the right reasons.

“It`s an extraordinary opportunity in an extraordinary country,” added Coe, whose mother was half-Indian.

Coe, a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), said leading sports bodies had to help nations such as India if major events were not to become the sole preserve of a privileged elite.

“If we want to globalise these events, if we want to make sure that they don`t just consistently go to a clutch of countries that are quite clearly resourced and with people to do this, then organisations like the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Movement are going to have to put frameworks around to help them,” he added.

“It is the same way that FIFA has clearly recognised that the 2010 [football] World Cup should go to South Africa because it is important.

“But that you have to be slightly more hands on. It is not enough for us to say, `Let`s globalise world sport` without giving the people we are hoping will pick up the baton some help from the centre.

“I know the Commonwealth Games Federation are down there on a permanent basis and I am sure the event will be a huge success, there is no doubt about that,”—AFP