A regional daily is backing a bid to bring the Commonwealth Games to its patch four years earlier than anticipated.

The Birmingham Mail wants to bring the Games to Birmingham after the South African city of Durban announced it would no longer be able to host them due to financial constraints.

Last year Birmingham City Council decided to bid to host the 2026 Games after a successful campaign by the Mail.

But now the city will go head to head with Liverpool for the right to host four years earlier than planned.

A Mail editorial reads: “It’s time to bring aspiration back to Birmingham. In five years’ time, a major city will be hosting the Commonwealth Games, a festival of sport which will attract hundreds of millions of viewers. That is the kind of platform our city should stand on.

“This city, where industrialisation began, which gifted Heavy Metal and the balti to the world, where people from 187 different nations come together, is a place the world should be looking at. Years of austerity and fear of failure have dampened ambition in some corners of Birmingham, but that must not become the status quo.

“Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe and we owe it to those young people to aspire for better. There is money on the table, the Government has pledged to back the winning city and Birmingham’s leading business groups are lining up to support the bid.

“And each pound invested will be returned three or four-fold to the city in jobs, income and infrastructure. We also need to think about the legacy – like turning the athletes’ village into homes for Brummies in the future.”

The Mail splashed on Friday with images of what the city’s rebuilt Alexander Stadium could look like if the bid is successful.

The editorial concludes: “So the answer to the question, ‘can Birmingham afford the Commonweath Games?’ is: our city can’t afford not to host it .

“We need to make a statement to the world that this is the place to be. The Birmingham Mail is fully and squarely behind the bid to bring the Games here in 2022.”