Sport’s value beyond price
SPORTS Minister Nigel Huddleston informed the House of Commons yesterday that he had written to the governing bodies of the major spectator sports asking for the names of any clubs under imminent financial threat.
After the Government’s decision to extend the ban on crowds, the list he will ll receive is likely to be as long ng as Dumbledore’s beard.
The Chancellor’s ’ s support package for r the economy may offer some weak rays of dappled sunlight t through the dense e woods of despair but t it will be insufficient t to sustain the sector as a whole. h l
The prognosis for professional sport in this country has rarely looked so bleak.
Unless more direct targeted help is given, coronavirus will send a cascade of clubs over the precipice. And here’s why the taxpayer should bail out sport when there are a thousand other demands upon the public purse. The impact sport has is profound. It is both an inspiration and comfort blanket, an obsession and an escape.
In the grand scheme of things it may not matter that Harrogate Town have made a great start to life under Simon Weaver, above, in the Football League or that Gloucester are treading water in the Gallagher Premiership,
GREAT ESCAPE but at micro- level it does matter.
Sport provides an identity. Places like Castleford and Carli Carlisle are put on the map by their team. Take them away and a part of the town would die with them.
The Chancellor has shifted the economic emphasis towards supporting what he called
“viable” businesses.
By the strict definition of the word, many of these clubs would fail that test even in good times. But their value is so much more than a balance sheet.
The organisations at risk serve their local communities as rallying points, meeting places, hubs and heartbeats. Sport is just a part of the picture.
On top, they provide facilities and outreach programmes covering everything from active living to Alzheimer’s, gang
ILKLEY Town are considering recruiting an alpaca as a lucky mascot after winning 2- 0 at Carlton Athletic game in a held up for 20 minutes by a pitch invasion from llama fluffy lookalike Oscar, who had escaped from a farm. violence to mental health. The Government’s position is that football, by virtue of the Premier League’s inordinate wealth, should feed its own family. On that point they are right.
But the landscape is not just football. No other sport commands anything like the same broadcasting revenue.
Racing, as the country’s second- biggest spectator sport, is seriously threatened. Both rugby codes are in a parlous state, too. Cricket’s desperate hope is that the mess is sorted by the time next season starts. The bulb has already gone out at Bury and Macclesfield. The Chancellor found £ 1.5billion for the arts and now he must come up with something to save sport – and everything that comes with it.
If clubs go, part of their towns would die too