The CSJ’s strategy for sport and physical activity simmers with possibilities absent from the government’s schemeThe Rugby World Cup is about to start but it’s moves by players off the pitch that could be of greater national importance. Last week the plan for the future health and wellbeing of the UK was played out in a game of two reports spearheaded by rugby legends.The first saw the publication of the long-awaited new UK government strategy for sport and physical activity, “Get Active”. It contains good intentions, new targets and positive language but little clarity about how, this time, it’s actually going to work. A second report from the Centre for Social Justice published just days later then joined the fray,...
Victoria’s withdrawal as 2026 host should be a catalyst for a sustainable way of staging major tournaments and meetingsThe decision by Victoria’s government to pull out of hosting the Commonwealth Games issues a broader challenge to sports leaders, governments, but also athletes and citizens around the world. This crisis goes beyond the growing indifference to the purpose of the event, originally founded as the Empire Games in 1930. The Olympics faces a similar struggle with just two bids for the 2024 Summer Games, with Paris and Los Angeles awarded 2024 and 2028 respectively, and only Brisbane bidding for 2032.In the race for the 2022 Winter Olympics, at least five potential host cities, all western democracies, withdrew from the bidding process...
The Liverpool captain is set for Saudi Arabia – but why is it only footballers who are harangued for their choices in these areas?It has been a big week for learnings, for moralisings, for herd-panic over the private affairs of men who appear regularly on television. In this sense the Huw Edwards shemozzle has at least revealed some vital life lessons.First, newsreaders are clearly central to the moral life of the nation. Who else will teach us right from wrong, if not people who are paid to read an Autocue and frown? Take my scripture, my certainties, abandon me to an indifferent universe. But leave me the newsreaders. Continue reading...
England’s Test captain Ben Stokes turned his team around by prioritising fun and there are moves to do this in children’s sportCan it be true that there are new, radical moves at play across all levels of sport based on a fresh, innovative philosophy: allowing sport to be fun again? In the buildup to the first Ashes Test, Ben Stokes revealed the philosophy and culture of the England cricket team’s turnaround has been to “make it as fun as you can”. No mention of sophisticated marginal gains or advanced data analytics. And at the other end of sport, there are serious (and long overdue) moves to boost children’s activity levels through improving how youngsters experience sport.Sport England recently launched a...
Saudi Arabia’s takeover of golf is a blueprint for the future – would your favourite sport put up any more of a fight?Perhaps you were invited to the exclusive Venice wedding of a billionaire’s daughter where Jay Monahan and Yasir al-Rumayyan are reported to have met for the first time. Perhaps you happened to be playing a round at Beaverbrook Golf Course at the same time as Rumayyan and the PGA board member Jimmy Dunne were thrashing out the early stages of a deal that would change golf for ever. Perhaps you happened to be eavesdropping at the next table as they ate dinner or at least close enough to hurl a well-aimed bread roll or slip something into the...