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Mr. Tony Banks: That is an interesting point. At the beginning of his speech, the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the three quarters of a billion pounds that is coming into football through the BSkyB and BBC deal. To what extent can we ensure that a chunk of that money benefits all football, as opposed to just going into the hands of a smaller number of richer clubs?
Mr. Mellor: Football must show an interest in developing the game. I gather that the money that goes to the Football Association for the coverage of the cup final filters down to the county football associations. I do not know whether those associations should have influence over the modern professional game. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who is also an honourable friend. The danger about money coming into football is that all it does is pay for hugely escalating transfer fees and ridiculous wages. We criticise the chap from Camelot who has run a successful lottery that brings in £1.5 billion for good causes. Even with his bonus, he earns £360,000, a third of what my club is paying either Mr. Gullit or Mr. Vialli. I do not object to that, because I am glad that they are playing for Chelsea, but we must get our values right.
The other danger is that football is pricing its grass-roots fans out of the game. I sit behind a microphone every Saturday afternoon during the football season doing a radio show, so I have learnt a thing or two that has been worth learning. For example, a lot of people for whom football is absolutely vital to their lives are feeling that they have been priced out of the game. They cannot afford to go or to take their kids.
Take Euro 96. How many ordinary fans will be able to buy tickets for that? I received tickets for the match between England and Scotland from Synchro Systems. It is even more complicated than applying for shares.
Mr. Banks:
Multiple applications.
Mr. Mellor:
Exactly. I made only one such application.
Some tickets came back. They were priced at £65 and bore the stamp "Severely Restricted View". Who the hell wants to pay £65 for a good view, let alone a severely restricted one? It seems that the football authorities are willing to price the ordinary fan out of the game. Some of the television money should be used to make sections of great stadiums available, relatively inexpensively. If football betrays its grass-root supporters in order to make money, it will not flourish. It should recognise that ordinary folk wish to be at the game. It is not good enough that they watch it on television, although it is helpful that we can all do so.
Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield):
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that not one penny of the BSkyB money will filter through to the game? It will go to the premier league clubs full stop. When my right hon. and learned Friend refers to the FA giving the receipts for a cup final to the clubs at a lower level and through to the counties, we are talking about less than £1 million. Does my right hon. and learned Friend find it difficult to accept that the great television deal will not benefit clubs that are outside the premier league?
Mr. Mellor:
Those clubs, of course, have done their own deal.
If premier league clubs receive television money, a good use of it would be not to charge the fans some of the ridiculous prices that have been charged of late. Sections of grounds could be made available to ordinary people through partnership schemes. I am talking of ordinary family people with limited wages, who want to experience live football.
I was involved in an advertisement for Reebok, which was prepared to make a substantial payment to charity. As a football product was being advertised, I thought that it would be sensible to make the money available to football.
When I was a kid growing up in Dorset, I could not go to league football because none was taking place in the area where I was living--at any rate, none worth watching. My constituency is only a couple of miles from great grounds such as Stamford Bridge. Many kids who live a mile or so from great grounds have never been to watch a football game there because they cannot afford a ticket.
With the proceeds from the Reebok advertisement, I was able to take 1,000 kids to their first football match. It happened to be the only occasion during the season when Chelsea scored five goals in a match. We won 5-0. I could not legislate for that. The kids had a fantastic day off. As I said, they live only a couple of miles from the ground, but they are priced out of the market. That must be taken on board when we look for an element of fairness.
I commended my hon. Friend the Minister on what he said about sport and sport education. I commend him also on what he said about a British academy of sport. Let the foot be kept on the accelerator. The concept must not be filtered through so many committees that we end up with a bastardised version of the proposal that does not reflect the clear lines that we have in mind.
The Australians have proved that the academy concept can work. On average, Britain has won five gold medals at all the modern Olympiads. Spain, for example, has put money into developing sportsmen. It did so in the run-up to the Barcelona games. It won more medals at those games than in all the modern Olympiads put together. That demonstrates that if we invest in sports people, we can have an effect on their performance.
The population of Australia is only 40 per cent. of that of the UK. The Australians are aiming for 60 medals--20 of them gold--at the Sydney games. They will win those medals because they have laid the necessary foundations. Let us do the same. It is not enough, however, merely to lay foundations, or to talk about doing so. We must get things up and running.
When I went to the last Olympic games, I met Chris Boardman, who won Britain's first gold medal at cycling for 70 years. Chris Boardman won his gold medal before he went out on the track. He had a bike that was the envy of all the other participants in the race. He also had a trainer and a sports psychologist. That boy was primed up. He believed in himself and he was ready to go. He managed to win a gold medal despite there being no velodrome in Britain of an Olympic standard. His victory was a tribute to the special things that had been done for him. If those things can be done for him, they can be done for others.
Sometimes we disgracefully neglect our sports people. For example, Steve Redgrave has won three rowing gold medals. He has won a gold at each of the last three Olympics. I think that he and Matthew Pinsent have been unbeaten for three seasons. There is every likelihood that they will win a fourth gold medal. Steve nearly packed in rowing after the Barcelona Olympics. He became fed up with having to sponge off his wife. He wanted to be sponsored and to receive proper money.
Steve Redgrave is as great an athlete as Linford Christie. We know, of course, that Linford is a great athlete who runs in blue riband events that attract a great deal of sponsorship. Those who make those sums available are not prepared similarly to make them available to rowing and many other events.
There are two worlds for Olympic athletes. In one world, there are those who can use their skills--jolly good luck to them--to make an extremely good living, apart from enjoying prestige. There are others whose gold medals have been equally hard won but who live in a sporting world that does not attract any form of commercial backing.
Wearing my hat as chairman of the Sports Aid Foundation, I say that we are the only country in the world where the costs of sustaining the training efforts of athletes fall on private individuals and organisations and are not met by the public purse. I pay tribute to the Foundation for Sport and the Arts. Before taking that further, I should say that before I became chairman of the Sports Aid Foundation, the largest grant that it had ever been able to give to any UK athlete of whatever talent was £5,000 a year. It is now possible to pay elite athletes £15,000 to £20,000 a year in training expenses. That is being done on the back of the Foundation for Sport and the Arts.
The Sports Aid Foundation spends just over £2 million a year. Even if the job that needs to be done is subject to a budget, we need to spend about £9 million or
£10 million a year. I believe that the foundation will get its way, but what is the point of having a national lottery that brings in £300 million a year if everything is spent on buildings, while nothing is spent on preparing the athletes who we want to perform with distinction? Like all other major sporting countries, we should take on the burden of making payments and grants available to promising sportsmen.
I take up the theme of my hon. Friend the Minister of teenagers in sport. The best evidence available to us shows that 80 per cent. of the most highly talented teenage athletes drop out of sport during their teenage years. They do so for various reasons. Some will drop out in any event because we cannot force people to continue, to sweat and to endure various privations. Some teenage athletes, however, drop out because they think that there is not much point in going on. They feel detached from the main-stream of teenage life. They do not think that it is worth while continuing with sport.
It is not only the losers who move away from sport. A short while ago, I had a riveting evening sitting next to one of our most prominent Olympic gold medallists. He told me that the year before he went to university, he nearly gave up sport. He thought, "Why the hell should I be doing this while everyone else is having fun? No one seems to care." He told me that he had no money and that it was a hell of a flog to get to where he wanted to train. We must take those feelings on board.
There are some things over which we as Members have no control. In other words, we do not have a role. A basic willingness, however, on the part of the House to take an interest in sport is fundamental and best serves the interests of our constituents. We should willingly do the things that we can do. We should use lottery money properly. We should create a British academy of sport. We should ensure that the Sports Council and other bodies are staffed with good people. Let us ensure that where we have political influence, it is exercised in favour of the principles in sport in which we believe.
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