PL’s £100m a year for the grassroots
THE Premier League, an all-powerful force in English football, have been persuaded to double their investment in the grassroots game by Minister for Sport Tracey Crouch.
The agreement that the PL — awash with TV money — will spend £100million a year for the three seasons of the next broadcast contract cycle on improving facilities and growing the game is included in Crouch’s sports strategy launched today.
The 40-year-old made it clear when she took office last May that she wanted the PL to distribute more of their fortune to the grassroots and she has achieved that aim having struck up a good working relationship with PL executive chairman Richard Scudamore.
However, plenty will still feel that nine-figure sum is too low when the PL are on course to bring in a staggering £8billion from TV rights.
And there could be confusion over branding between the FA’s Parklife scheme to build football centres with 3G pitches in 30 cities by 2020 and the PL promising a presence in 10,000 primary schools by 2019 through their ‘Clubs as Hubs’ project.
But Crouch welcomes all the extra revenue, saying: ‘It’s an issue I feel passionate about and we will help ensure that the extra money goes to the right places.’
The strategy is encouraging sporting activity at a far younger age with Sport England backing community sport for five-year- olds onwards rather than starting at 14.
And at the elite level Crouch wants knowledge to be shared to help GB teams and individuals win the big prizes. The Government will facilitate discussions between the main team sports — football, cricket and rugby — an initiative which FA technical director Dan Ashworth has already started.
There will be a new working group made up of representatives from sports’ national bodies, UK Sport and Sport England to ensure ‘no stone is left unturned to help home nations at future World Cups’.
Not before time after England’s hat-trick of failures at the last football, rugby and cricket global tournaments.
SURELY the biggest offer to referee a football match — taking place in Kuwait this weekend — was made to elite official turned pundit Graham Poll. But the 52-year-old (right) had to turn down the £20,000 plus firstclass travel and accommodation because he will be on a family skiing holiday. Kuwait needed to choose officials outside football because the country is on the FIFA banned list. THE BBC and ITV sorted their whole schedule of live games for Euro 2016 last Tuesday with the draw having been just three days earlier. This compares with months of haggling when FA chairman Greg Dyke was director-general of the BBC. He played hardball, threatening to cover every match — knowing the Beeb always win the head-to-head ratings — until he was happy with his share.
RFU chief Ian Ritchie is understood to have stopped negotiating with Bristol over the release of forwards coach Steve Borthwick when the price quoted reached more than £750,000. England were even prepared to release Borthwick, who is on a two-year deal at Bristol, to help the club’s Premiership promotion challenge after the Six Nations.