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touchline
The journal of spor t, leisure & r isk with an international perspective
Issue 9
Sportscover endeavours to ensure that the information contained in touchline is correct at the time of publication, and cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions made.
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Steve Boucher
touchline@sportscover.com
Contents
Recent events have put the spotlight on
the sustainability and value of grassroots
sport. Whilst these news reports are
from the UK they have relevance to
sport around the world.
In the first, nine of the UK’s leading
governing bodies for sport, including
the Premier League and the Football
Association, have signed a voluntary
code to reinvest at least 30% of
their domestic television revenues in
grassroots projects – an amount of
£250m a year.
This is a big ‘win’ for the Sport and
Recreation Alliance (SRA), an umbrella
organisation that represents 320 national
bodies for sport and recreation in the UK
and it will help to secure the future for
many amateur sports.
However, whilst this appears to be a
welcome philanthropic gesture by the
nine organisations (theAll England Lawn
Tennis Club/Lawn Tennis Association,
the ECB, the PGA European Tour, the
FA, the Premier League, the Royal &
Ancient, the Rugby Football League and
UK Athletics), it is also a very necessary
move to ensure the future of the elite
sports they represent as well. Without a
healthy grassroots sport structure many
of the elite sports would not be able
to exist, or at least, would be far less
successful.
The importance of grassroots sport is
also recognised by many. Companies
such as Sportscover have long
sought ways to support local clubs
and associations through community
programmes and projects such as the
Sportscover Sponsorship fund (see
page 8), an annual distribution of grants
to sports clubs and associations.
But the strength of grassroots sport is
not only that it leads to a vibrant elite and
professional structure, but that it also
delivers many other social and political
objectives. In the second piece of news,
a recent UK House of Lords Committee
report says that the potential of sport is
under-exploited at both EU and national
level, despite its ability to deliver on core
policy objectives in health, education,
employment and social spheres.
Committee chair, Baroness Young
commented that sport should not be
regarded as a peripheral policy area
but should be viewed as a ‘powerful
and effective tool in the delivery of
objectives across the policy spectrum’.
This is not a new concept. Similar
statements have been made before
by other governments. In Australia, the
Australian Sports Commission Act was
passed in 1989 with its stated mission
is “to enrich the lives of all Australians
through sport”. The Singapore Sports
Council has a similar policy with stated
core principles for sport of developing
resilient,
healthy
Singaporeans,
bringing a multi-racial society together,
enhancing national pride, contributing
to a vibrant society and economy and
strengthening friendships with other
nations.
These objectives are more than just
fine statements of intent – or at least
they should be. There is no doubt that
sport has a major part to play in the
health and well being of people but also
promotes a number of other sought
after virtues, such as racial harmony
and national pride. This is something
that governments around the world
are becoming more aware of but need
to regularly re-state and re-affirm and
then act accordingly.
Governments around the world need to
recognise the tremendous benefits that
sport can bring and start to make sport
a central part of their social, health and
educational programmes. This would
be a big step towards a better world.
April 2011
Governments need to
value grassroots sport
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