Following the Prime Minister's announcement last week, I wanted to provide you all with a short update on the next steps for working with sports to help them get through this pandemic.
Throughout coronavirus, the government has consistently taken action to recognise the importance of sport to our country and our communities. Even during the height of lockdown in the spring the government still prioritised physical exercise and activity, given its importance for physical and mental health, and has worked hard since to get grassroots sports back up and running. We have:
● Helped the sector by making sure it was eligible for business support schemes such as the business rates relief for eligible leisure businesses, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Many sports and clubs took up this support totalling many tens of millions of pounds.
● Provided specific support for local authorities through the income guarantee scheme.
● Worked with Sport England to provide a £195 million package of support to help community sport through this crisis. The organisation has also boosted its Community Emergency Fund by a further £15 million to meet the demand, taking the total up to £210 million.
● Worked with the sports to provide them with a clear path back to recovery. We got elite sport back up and running Behind Closed Doors, brought Premier League football to the BBC for the first time ever and brokered a landmark deal to secure over a third of Premier League games on free to air television.
Our priority throughout has been to help sports to help themselves. We were making good progress on our path to recovery with small-scale pilots for fans returning starting last month, and we had planned to allow fans to return to stadia in a socially distanced manner from 1 October. However, despite sports working extremely hard to make venues Covid-secure and delivering 12 safe and successful pilots (across both men’s and women’s sport), with rising national transmission rates the government decided it is no longer possible to make further progress. Public health advice was clear that we need to restrict the virus and not introduce further changes that would allow it to spread further.
Nonetheless, as the Prime Minister said we recognise the serious financial implications for sports bodies of this decision. This is a difficult moment for British sport but you should not doubt our commitment to supporting the sector as best we can to deal with the consequences of this decision.
The Government is working quickly with the sector to get a detailed understanding of the financial pressures across sports. The Prime Minister has tasked us with looking at a package of measures to financially support the relevant sports that rely on the return of spectators to generate revenue, and ensure they emerge on the other side ready to make the huge contribution to our communities and to national life for which we value them.
We are speaking with the affected sports intensively and their input into this process will be vital. I appreciate each of you are likely to have organisations in your constituencies who are worried by the postponement of fans returning. If you could please ask that they engage urgently with their respective National Governing Bodies as that will help to ensure they are fully appraised of the situation within their sports, and allow us to work together at significant pace. We have commissioned returns from relevant sports affected to set out their financial position by this Wednesday so we can understand what further support may be required.
With regard to football, as I discussed on Sunday, I have been in dialogue with the Premier League who are having constructive discussions with the English Football League about providing support. I am confident that they will come to a sensible conclusion. Separately, the Government recognises the immediate pressure National League clubs are under in respect of re-starting their season. We are working at pace, including with the Football Association, to design a package of support that will give the National League the reassurance it needs. This will include grants to cover essential revenue lost from fans not returning on 1 October, as planned. We are committed to play resuming in these historic leagues, in a viable way.
In the meantime, please be reassured that across Government we recognise the gravity of the situation facing clubs and organisations in constituencies across the country. The Sports Minister and I will be working hard to ensure that British sport bounces back as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Oliver Dowden CBE MP
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport