The southwestern provincial city of Gwangju has been chosen to host the world swimming championships in 2019. For the city, it is definitely a matter for congratulation.

The biennial swimming competition will give the city, which has already been selected as the venue of the 2015 Summer Universiade, another major chance to promote itself abroad as an attractive investment and tourist destination.

Yet the city’s achievement has lost much of its luster as its officials face an investigation for allegedly forging the signatures of top government officials in submitting a draft bid proposal to FINA, the international governing body of swimming.

The Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism has already asked prosecutors to launch an investigation into the allegations, saying that the central government would withdraw its earlier promise to provide financial support for the city government to organize the event.

According to the ministry, the organizing committee of the sporting event forged the signatures of former Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and former Culture Minister Choe Kwang-sik in a document guaranteeing the central government’s financial support.

The forgery was discovered in late April when a FINA inspection team visited Korea. But Gwangju officials asked the ministry to remain silent and delay referring the case to the prosecution until after FINA’s selection of the host city for the 2019 event.

Curiously, the ministry accepted this request. It said it did not want to throw cold water on the city’s bid. But the ministry cannot avoid criticism for its failure to immediately bring to justice those who ran afoul of the law.

The forgery allegations were brought to light just hours before Gwangju was picked as the host city. Kang Un-tae, the city’s mayor, suspected that someone leaked the information to the media to prevent the city from staging the international competition.

But Kang came under fire for having gone beyond the limits to win the right to host the high-profile swimming event. He apologized for the organizing committee’s unwarranted act, but asserted that his city deserved financial support from the central government.

He claimed that Prime Minister Chung Hong-won promised the central government’s support for the swimming championships during his meeting with the FINA inspection team ― despite his knowledge of the signature fabrication scandal.

Yet the Prime Minister’s Office denied the claim, saying Chung simply expressed his hope for Gwangju’s victory in the bidding race.

The central government is right to decide to withhold financial support for Gwangju. If it extends support to the city despite its glaring breach of the law, it would set a bad precedent.

In recent years, international sports events have boomed here as many provincial governments competed with each other to host them, hoping that they would bring handsome economic benefits.

But in many cases their hope was nothing more than wishful thinking. Costly international events only put considerable strain on their balance sheets.

Some local government heads are keen to host high-profile events simply to leave a legacy. The central government should not use taxpayers’ money for such irresponsibly promoted events.

In this regard, it was right for the central government to limit the scope of international sports events eligible for state financial support to the Big Five ― the Olympics, Asian Games, Universiade, World Cup and Athletics World Championship.