Examination of Witnesses (Questions 98-118)
TIM REDDISH AND LORD MOYNIHAN
14 DECEMBER 2010
Q98 Chair: We now
move on to the second part of this morning's session and can I
welcome Tim Reddish, the Chairman of the British Paralympic Association
(BPA), and Lord Moynihan, the Chairman of the British Olympic
Association (BOA).
Dr Coffey: Can I just
start off with a more general question, perhaps not specific to
the 2012 Games. Do you believe the impact of the Paralympics would
be even greater if it was held before the Olympics instead of
being the after event?
Tim Reddish: Sorry,
where's the microphone?
Dr Coffey: Straight ahead
of you.
Tim Reddish: We're
okay? Can you pick me up okay? Sorry. No, because I prefer the
Olympic Games to be first because that's the dress rehearsal.
Because it then can smooth out any little glitches but also it
whets the appetite for people to get excited about sport first
and then, because of the distinctiveness of the Paralympic Games—and
it is distinctive and that is the way I like to look at it—I
think it will encourage more people to be involved with the Paralympic
movement; get excited about the Paralympic family and what the
Paralympic Games can bring to the nation and the rest of the world.
Q99 Dr Coffey: Building
on that, what impact will the cuts made to the ParalympicsGB budget
have on the team and beyond?
Tim Reddish: It's
always exciting when something happens in your backyard and I've
been involved for a number of years, both as an athlete, as a
performance director and now with the BPA. You go around the world
and you visit different nations and you can't put a price on it,
you can't measure it. There is something about a home Games, a
home environment, that has an impact automatically. Some athletes
will try and extend their career a little bit longer. You'll get
younger athletes that want to get involved earlier than they would
have done if it hadn't been a home Games and you'll get people
talking about sport and the inspiration that Paralympics can give
to them. From that point of view that impact is there and I love
the word "impact" rather than "legacy". We
shouldn't worry about legacy. We should worry about impact.
Q100 Dr Coffey: That's
interesting. Somebody else was going to ask about elite athletes
but I can. I'll follow through. Are you happy that funding for
elite athletes has been protected despite the cut in funding made
to UK Sport as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR),
Lord Moynihan or Mr Reddish?
Tim Reddish: I'm
very pleased and so are the athletes because to get an athlete
to the podium could take anything from two years. In particular
in our sport if an athlete becomes impaired through trauma or
something and they've been an athlete in the past, to those athletes
that you develop from when they're talented it could take up to
eight years. So to be able to protect and ring-fence that specific
funding for those athletes, to be able to balance their work,
their life and their career moving forward, is essential for us
to maintain the great progress we've made over the last six to
10 years.
Lord Moynihan:
From the point of view of the British Olympic Association we recognise
that it is a very difficult economic climate and we welcome the
Government's continued support for our leading Olympic athletes.
We're particularly grateful and find praiseworthy the work that
Jeremy Hunt and Hugh Robertson have undertaken on their behalf.
Safeguarding of funding to the national governing bodies and the
athletes is critical for performance and the fact that focus has
also been placed on safeguarding the funding coming out of the
Games in 2012 so that we can continue to build to 2016 is really
important. That's where Australia went wrong in 2000 in Sydney.
It's where I believe this Government is absolutely right. So a
combination of securing the funding for the team through the full
six-year period since we won the Games to 2012 and then the importance
of safeguarding funding post-2012 are both measures that we are
appreciative of and we're very grateful to Government for responding
in that way.
Q101 Dr Coffey: Given
that you're responsible for the success at the Games, I understand
UK Sport has responsibility for athlete preparation, is that overlap
necessary or unnecessary?
Lord Moynihan:
Is there overlap?
Q102 Dr Coffey: Well,
there is overlap. Is that necessary, to have an overlap?
Lord Moynihan:
I would argue that there was no overlap. UK Sport is there with
a clear mandate as the Government's bank manager for high performance
sport. They undertake due diligence when it comes to supporting
the governing bodies. Our role as the National Olympic Committee
for Great Britain and Northern Ireland is far wider. We need to
select, prepare, manage and lead the British teams to all Olympic
Games; not just the winter and the summer Games but the Youth
Olympic Festivals—for the first time we had the Youth Olympic
Games in Singapore earlier this year—and working with our
national governing bodies we offer extensive services to them
reflecting our responsibilities with the Olympic Charter. So I
don't see it as an overlap between the BOA and UK Sport. We work
very closely together, we should work closely together moving
forward and that seems to me important. There should be a seamless
approach between all the stakeholders in British sport, so that
the real beneficiaries are the athletes, the Olympians and the
Paralympians, in the process.
Q103 Ms Bagshawe:
Obviously legacy is a key part of all this. One of the problems
with the way that the Olympic Games is set up obviously is there
is going to be extra funding and lots of extra money around the
Olympics and the Paralympics. Are you worried that the obvious
cuts in funding that are going to come after the Games are going
to impact the legacy in that they will impact on athletes just
as they are supposedly enjoying and getting inspired by what the
Olympics and Paralympics have delivered?
Tim Reddish: Can
I start first? You are right to ask that question. I think we
have to look at it from two strands. Does competition come first
or does the training, systems and processes of athletes come first?
You have to get the balance right. If we cut funding at the elite
end then we will have to go away and the governing bodies will
have to go away and look at how they operate and function with
the elite end of their athletes. But the impact of that is that
if it cascades down where they have to focus even more with less
funding across both the participation and the performance end
then everything will be diluted and this pipeline that we have
started to develop over the last six to 10 years will just become
blocked and we'll undo all that hard work. It takes up to six
years to effect a change in that two to eight years to get an
athlete on a podium. It can take one day to destroy all that process.
Lord Moynihan:
From the British Olympic Association point of view, there are
two elements to the sports legacy; one that we touched upon in
your earlier question, which is to make sure that the funding
doesn't just drop off post-2012. We've got the CSR running until
2014 but we have to make sure that it goes through to 2016 in
Rio de Janeiro. But I think the signs from all parties are that
support will be forthcoming for those last two years and it is
something that we will be focusing and lobbying on.
There is the wider issue of sports legacy. I have
to say that in the early years of this programme I felt very comfortable
that the urban regeneration legacy of hosting London 2012 was
outstandingly successful and was going to deliver to the communities
living in the area. I think the whole drive in making sure that
the facilities were going to be used, by both high-performance
athletes and the community, and that everything was being designed
to benefit a serious and long-running urban regeneration programme
was second to none in Olympic history and was highly praiseworthy.
My concern really had been at that time on the sports
legacy and I think that there have been some signs in recent weeks
that give me greater confidence. Firstly, the announcement from
the CSR clearly supporting the high-performance team . Hugh Robertson
has been very focused on this and one of the advantages of having
Ministers coming into office who have been Shadows is that they
come in with a very great deal of expertise and knowledge of the
subject.
I think Hugh Robertson, as Minister for the Olympics,
has really looked very hard at putting in place a sports participation
legacy plan. He is focused on the leadership programme in partnership
with the British Olympic Association where we're going to have
thousands of sports volunteers and leaders and administrators
carrying on post-2012. He's looked at facilities, investment in
facilities, particularly the playing fields. It is really important
that we don't lose playing fields and that they're there for the
use of the community and also for the clubs and the high-performance
athletes. Then he has also launched an initiative called the Gold
Challenge, which is a fantastic partnership initiative to use
the incentive of raising money for charity by people taking part
in Olympic and Paralympic sports through local delivery mechanisms
run by governing bodies.
So, on all these fronts, we are beginning to see
with some granularity an effective sports legacy programme. The
final building block in that, which is still the subject of much
internal discussion within Government, is on the educational side
and sport in schools and the competitive element of sport in schools,
potentially building up to an Olympic-style school sports games.
I know there is much discussion continuing on that subject and
nothing is finalised. But the British Olympic Association are
excited about the increase in competition at school level and
we have offered to assist at the levels of regional and national
competition to play quite an important role in bringing the Olympification
and the catalyst that the Olympic Games can bring to young people
to get engaged in competitive school sport.
This isn't just up until 2012 but we would hope any
such programme would live long beyond 2012 and be a longstanding
legacy to encourage people to participate in sport and to compete
in sport to the highest level, both Olympic, non-Olympic, Paralympic
and some of the disabled sports that aren't covered in the Paralympics.
That work is underway. As I say, nothing is finalised but it's
something that is inspirational to the British Olympic Association
and we hope is successful.
Q104 Ms Bagshawe:
That's encouraging in terms of how funding will affect it. But
Mr Reddish's earlier answer did seem to be a warning of the great
dangers of what might happen with drops in funding. Is there an
opportunity to look at where this has happened and see how it
has affected the sports involved? I think particularly of shooting
and handball in the period up until 2009; Sport England and UK
Sport changed their funding formula and funding to those sports
were cut. Can we see how it has affected those sports and whether
or not there has been the kind of drop-off that Mr Reddish was
just referring to? What, in fact, has been the result of the cut
in funds to those particular sports? They might be test cases
to look at how it will affect sports going forward.
Tim Reddish: As
an overview, I think it is difficult to assess now where they
are because they're building and preparing for the Games in 2012
and I think what they did was they readjusted how they want to
implement their programmes based on the funding they had available.
I think it would be unfair at this moment in time, two years out.
I think the assessment should be looked at post the Games to see
where they perform and how they perform, based on what their expectations
and their own personal targets were for the Games.
Q105 Ms Bagshawe:
Okay. So you think the Games has to be the benchmark of how those
cuts have affected those sports?
Tim Reddish: I
don't think we can look at it any other way. I'm not privy in
particular with those sports because they're from the Olympic
programme. But what I'm saying is that they would have had to
make some decisions, like all businesses do, in relation to how
they progress, how they develop and how they use the resources
they have. I think we have to get the balance right with funding,
moving forward, to retain the appropriate funding that's required
and to ensure that if there are cuts to be made, how those cuts
are made so that we can get the balance right to make sure that
we have the sustainability for those athletes and governing bodies
moving forward.
Q106 Ms Bagshawe:
Indeed. Conversely then, if we were to take shooting and handball
as the two sports in question, if we were to have good results
at the Olympics for shooting and handball, would it not then tend
to go towards a position that you can have your funding cut and,
providing you manage it and you husband your resources effectively,
it need not necessarily affect your performance? In other words,
the input doesn't necessarily equal output.
Lord Moynihan:
You're absolutely right; funding is not the be all and end all.
Funding provides the framework; it provides the base case from
which one can ensure that you can contract the best coaches and
support services around an athlete to develop that athlete to
their highest potential and hopefully lead to a personal best
on the day of an Olympic final.
Overall I think that the decisions that were made
by UK Sport were positive for us. There were six summer sports
who had their successful performances in 2010 acknowledged by
increasing funding from UK Sport last week. You're right to pick
up on shooting. You could also have picked up on badminton. But
overall the fact of the matter is that the British Olympic Association,
in looking at the funding of Olympic sport over the last six years,
is supportive of the levels of that funding and is particularly
grateful to the British public who have made these awards possible
through the sale of lottery tickets.
I do think that there are issues to be looked at.
I think almost by implication you are going to clearly look at
this in due course. I think if you have a "no compromise"
approach to funding that focuses on medals and medal-hopeful sports,
that can work very well in the short term. But equally there are
some sports—not least the winter sports some of which have
been cut to zero—where what we need to do is to recognise
that they didn't start from the same position as some of the summer
sports and what you need to look at is the funding of governance
in those sports to deliver stronger governance. Then you need
to have the performance pathways, the identification of talent
to take those athletes through and then you need the support for
the potential medallists and World Cup and Europa Cup winners.
I think that's a very important point.
I don't think you can just simply put money in right
at the top based on the medal performance based on previous European
championships or Games. It would be like funding all MPs' seats
by the party in the run-up to an election but ignoring all candidates
and saying that unless they were MPs they didn't get any money
in the first place. You can never operate a system like that and
I think, from the point of view of sport, we need to get this
balance right between the short-term objective of making sure
that the medal prospects are well-funded. But also there needs
to be clear support to governing bodies to improve their ability
through better governance, of raising money from the private sector
as well as from the lottery and Government, delivering better
services to their athletes and supporting the performance pathways
that identify really outstanding youngsters, through the junior
into the senior ranks and then onwards from there. If you don't
have that, you will never see success in the sports where funding
has simply been cut.
Q107 Damian Collins:
Building on that, looking at the medal tables that set a very
ambitious target for our performance in 2012 for the Games and
the Paralympics, firstly, can we exceed what we achieved in Beijing?
Is that a realistic target?
Tim Reddish: We
all want to aspire to exceed what we achieved at the Beijing Paralympic
Games and if you talk to the athletes themselves that are coming
through, they all want to be better and they all want to win medals.
The one thing that is out of our control is what happens on the
field of play when the whistle goes or the starting signal goes,
because it's down to human endeavour and performance.
Our responsibility, in partnership with the governing
bodies, is to keep them the best prepared, to ensure they're the
best prepared and to make sure that we've got everything that
is around them to enable them to achieve a personal best. Sometimes
their personal best may not be good enough to win the medal. The
worst place to be is fourth, and I can speak from experience.
It happens. I think we've got to make sure we've got that infrastructure
around it, but we will all aspire. We want to try and win more
medals across more sports in the home Games; that's our aspirational
target. What that end figure will be we can't tell you until the
Games are over, but we are all aspiring to achieve that at the
Paralympic Games.
Lord Moynihan:
I was wryly smiling when you were asking the question, Damian,
because you're not going to receive a medal target out of me,
certainly not at this stage. I will tell you why it is; because
quite frankly it's ludicrous. You're 17 months out from 2012.
There is no performance benefit in providing a medal target. We
don't know who we're going to select as the team. We don't know
who the opposition is going to be and how well they're going to
perform on the day.
We're getting early indications of how some of the
outstanding athletes in the world are developing and I think that
if you ask any athlete, any Olympic champion, if a medal target
helped him or her get their gold medals they would absolutely
say no. What we must do at the moment is have an ambition to win
more medals in more sports than we've ever done for over a century.
I won't go over a century because in 1908 we won 141 medals in
21 sports, and I can give you the prediction that we won't be
doing that on this occasion.
I think we had an outstanding performance in Beijing
that exceeded all expectations. We finished fourth in the medal
table behind only China, the USA and Russia. We won 47 medals
across a variety of sports. I want to have a broader variety of
sports achieving medal success and the six-year funding programme
that was agreed between the BOA and UK Sport and Government in
2006 allows us to do that. The results that we've seen over the
last few years are really promising in terms of medal prospects
coming from different sports. In Beijing our medal success was
focused at cycling, rowing and sailing. YOu could say that we
are very good in sports where we are sitting down. We must now
be better in other sports and I think we will be in sports like
boxing, for example, where there is really strong potential coming
through from both women and men boxers.
To me, that is what it's all about. It's not giving
a medal target. It's providing every opportunity for athletes
to go and participate and to do so to their personal best on the
day. Having said that, we'll be under intense pressure from our
friends in the press to come up with a medal target in advance
and whether we accede to that pressure or not will be decided
close to the time; but it will be at least when we know who we've
selected as our team and how well the world is performing and
how well we will be performing against them. But today I think
it would be a very unwise chair of the BOA to come forward with
a projection.
Q108 Damian Collins:
If I may, I totally respect your answer. I think it was in The
Times newspaper, they have a predictor table now, based on
performance in all sorts of sports, and that has us basically
coming out doing about as well as we did in Beijing. I don't know
if they factor in home advantage in compiling these tables. But
what I noticed as well, the prediction there is only two gold
medals in track and field. Now, when you competed in 1980 I think
we had four gold medals in track and field. But certainly two,
over the sweep of the last 20 or 30 years, is consistent with
how well we've done, with Atlanta being a particularly poor Games.
Given all the investment there's been in sport since the lottery
money came in, would you like to have seen a greater improvement
in our relative strength in track and field than our performance
in what is, for many people, the flagship event of the Olympic
Games?
Lord Moynihan:
I did happen to see, when I was coming in from the airport this
morning—some of my answers might be somewhat jetlagged from
spending so many hours on the plane— The Times article
on this and Ashling O'Connor's work with her colleagues, which
is interesting. But it's good press; it's good coverage. I don't
think it will look much like that. I think there will be a lot
of change between now and 2012 on the basis of some of that assessment.
As far as track and field is concerned, I happen
to take a more optimistic view at the moment. When I look at the
performances that we've seen over the last 12 months I think there
is talent that is coming through that is going to do exceptionally
well and better than The Times predicted in terms of a
medal tally, at the moment. But that prediction is based almost
as if the Games were tomorrow. I think the team that we've got
now will be doing better. I don't think that we need to have invested
more money into it. I think they have been well supported.
Van Commenee has brought coaching expertise to athletics
that I think will deliver the same sort of results that Sweetenham
brought to swimming and I think you'll find that the results from
track and field will be strong. But it's unwise to predict too
accurately on that before, again, we've seen the international
competition and how they come through in the next 18 months.
Q109 Damian Collins:
Again, I'm not really asking you to predict a medal performance,
but there have been targets that have been talked about from the
progress of British Olympic sports over a number of Games. Firstly
a question: do you think we have chased targets in doing that
and, in trying to achieve those targets, do you think we've looked
to allocate investment in sports where we think it's most likely
that we can make the most progress? There's been a lot of talk
for a number of years that we've done well in the sort of sitting-down
sports. Are those sports—where there is the extra investment
coming into those sports, where there was already a good infrastructure
in the UK—where we're more likely to see the sort of medal
increase we're looking for?
Lord Moynihan:
I have long taken the personal view, from having competed in 1980
and 1984 and being involved in sport all my life, that this obsession
with targets is misplaced. What you need to do as a country, as
the BOA and as governing bodies and as Government agencies is
to seamlessly provide support to the athletes. It's all about
quantity of support and quality of support; it's about opportunity.
If you provide the infrastructure necessary so that the athletes
can provide their personal best, then the medal table will take
care of itself.
Now I'm tested and should rephrase this possibly,
but there is the famous example of the Athens Games and five of
the gold medals we won: Kelly Holmes' 800 and 1,500 metres, the
men's coxless four, the men's 4 x 100 metre final and Chris Hoy's
one kilometre time trial. Now, if you add all those together the
combined time of those five golds that Team GB won was over 10
minutes.If you took all five gold medals and made all five silver
medals—remember the medal table is based on gold medals—the
combined time between Team GB winning five golds and five silvers
was 0.545 of one second.
Now, if you just take that fact in Athens, which
would have moved us significantly down in the medal table, then
I think that a Chairman of the British Olympic Association should
not be sitting here and giving you some target when that fact
is printed on a number of pillowcases of people within the British
Olympic Association, to absolutely focus their minds, that no
stone is left unturned. Every single thing we do in preparing
Team GB for the Games, everything we do, must be focused on supporting
those athletes.
There is no room for making mistakes and it is inherent
in the culture of the British Olympic Association and particularly
the new culture that has been instilled by Andy Hunt as our chief
executive officer that attention to detail,excellence and delivery
mechanisms is critical. Because if it can give just 0.545 of one
second split around five potential medallists, the difference
between silver and gold, then we will have delivered what we need
to deliver in 2012.
But we're up against very, very strong and well-financed
teams from across the World. Germany is going to be very strong;
Australia is going to be exceptionally strong; Japan is going
to be strong. These are all teams that are going to really challenge
us, and just above us in the medals table last time, Russia, is
also going to be strong.. So we have to focus on providing the
support to the athletes, every conceivable part of support, in
order to make that 0.545 a reality for all those athletes and
a goal to success.
Q110 Damian Collins:
One final question if I may. Obviously as host nation we get to
participate in a lot of minority sports that aren't normally played
at an elite level in the UK. I wanted to ask, for example, about
handball. I think it's one of the sports where Sir Steve Redgrave
was involved in trying to talent-spot people that might have an
aptitude for that sport who don't currently play it. I just wanted
to ask how that experiment had gone, across that sport and other
sports. Also, if any of these sports take off during the Games
and the attention they get, do you think there is an infrastructure
base behind those sports to create a lasting legacy of activity
within them?
Lord Moynihan:
Yes, I do. We do have this opportunity of having host nation qualification
for some of our teams, not all of them, in all 26 sports. The
driver behind that has historically been that the international
federations understandably want a highly successful Games; so
each international federation wants to ensure their sport is on
the Olympic programme. One of the ways of ensuring a successful
games is to have a home nation team and the reason for that is
people buy tickets. Tickets is quite an important criterion for
the international federations competing to retain their place
on the programme when it comes to review four years later and
four years later after that.
I have taken the view and the British Olympic Association
position on this is we will only use those places where we believe
there will be a credible performance. Now, we decide on what that
credible performance is and we set the standards, sitting down
with the individual governing bodies in order to see whether that's
possible. But there is also another dynamic than a credible performance
and that is for some of these sports, which are not mainstream
sports but are increasing exponentially in participation at the
moment because of the Games, if we can see them as a stepping
stone to 2016 and to 2020 and have a serious performance legacy
for those sports.
But there will be no Eddie the Eagles selected in
the context of 2012. Credible performance will be a key to us
taking up a host nation place and that is the subject of detailed
internal discussion with the governing bodies. But we do want
to encourage wider participation. We do want these teams to be
a catalyst for bringing new sports and new recreational activity
across the country as part of the sports legacy.
Tim Reddish: Can
I just add, from the Paralympic Association, it's the same approach
for ourselves in regards to that credible performance. But, as
an example, four years ago we didn't have a sitting volleyball
team, male or female. We now have male and female sitting volleyball
teams that recently went overseas to compete at the World Championships
with very credible performances and, again, through the process
of the British Paralympic Association working with them to establish
what is a credible performance. What we need to have in place
to ensure that we have teams at the Games to excite and inspire
the youth of the future to take part in that sport is how we work
together with them. It is their responsibility as the National
Governing Body (NGB) to work with the athletes. We will work with
them in preparation for the Games but also to hopefully leave
that impact and legacy for future athletes to take part.
Q111 Paul Farrelly:
Just briefly, Chair, a couple of questions. To summarise, the
consensus is that the movement from tenth to fourth in the medal
table was not a freak. It wasn't a statistical anomaly. It was
because of the investment in the pipeline over a number of years.
Is that a fair summary?
Lord Moynihan:
Absolutely. Consistent funding—we praised the last Government
for introducing it and we have praised them for sitting down with
the British Olympic Association so that the governing bodies could
sit down with the Department and the work that Tessa Jowell did
on this was very important. Funding is important but it has to
be consistent over time, and the principal reason it has to be
consistent over time is you need to contract with world-class
coaches and they won't come on a one-year contract. They want
to come on at least a four-year contract so they can go through
to the next Olympic Games. That applies not just to world-class
coaches but the support structure; all the "ologists"
who now support leading sports men and women.
So predictability of funding over time is critical.
Stop-go funding is a disaster for sport. Countries that have applied
that lose. So you need to have that as the bedrock from which
you build the systems, as for example they have in cycling, rowing
and sailing. But we need to do that across all sports and we need
to make sure of that over time—and it comes back to my point
about getting the governance of the governing bodies right. We
have some outstanding Formula One governing bodies. We have some
that are just beginning.
We mustn't apply the same standards of Formula One
requirements to all 33 Olympic governing bodies. That is so important,
and we are doing that. We are doing that too much and we now need
to recognise that we should, as part of the sports legacy from
the Games, be supporting governing bodies with improved governance,
making sure for the earlier stage governing bodies that we have
strong performance pathways. Everything is about performance,
the 0.545, and then going on from there to see the extraordinary
success and professionalism of what I call the Formula One governing
bodies that we have just talked about.
So in answer to your question, that funding was very
important and we, at the BOA, are very grateful to the previous
Government for putting it in place and we are very grateful to
the current Government in difficult economic circumstances for
fighting to retain it through the Games to 2014 with confidence
I believe, from both sides of the House that that can be sustained
through to the 2016 Games and a successful team performance in
Rio.
Q112 Paul Farrelly:
Clearly it would be crazy to cut elite funding right at the end
of the pipeline when you are the host nation for 2012 and you're
on display to the world. But, Colin, you did say you were concerned
about some of the sports legacy and you referred in passing to
the ongoing controversy about cutting school sports partnerships
in their entirety at the other end of the spectrum. I think Number
10 is reported—I don't know if it is accurate—to be
having a rethink about that. But just as one further example:
schools have been encouraged to develop specialisms over the years.
Now, that's been pretty much cross-party, yet Chesterton
Community Sports College, which was Chesterton High School in
Newcastle-under-Lyme, was one of those singled out for its sports
funding speciality to be removed. Why sport was singled out and
not humanities or any other specialism is beyond me. But it seems
to indicate the potential that sport could be seen, once 2012
is out of the way, as a soft target for cuts at the other end
of the pipeline, which may affect how you perform at the elite
end in the flow-through in years to come. What would you say to
anyone who was tempted to see sport as a soft target for cutting
after 2012?
Lord Moynihan:
I would campaign hard, as I've done for the last 30 years and
will do to my dying day, in the interests of highlighting the
importance of sport in schools and sport throughout the community:
whether it is to provide hope for kids who are otherwise on the
escalator to crime; whether it is to be an absolutely key part
of a health programme whereby we're tackling obesity; the very
benefit of sport in its own right within schools as an educational
programme. All of these are really important.
Do I wrestle with some of the challenges that are
faced at the moment? Yes, I do and I'll give you one example,
which I think is the statistic that most depresses me in this
country in sport by a significant margin. It remains the case
that over 50% of our medallists in the Olympic Games come from
7% of the children educated in the independent sector. That to
me is wholly, utterly unacceptable. That demonstrates to me that
we have tremendous talent among the 93% of the kids in the state
sector and that talent is not being identified, that talent does
not have a pathway through which it can be developed to whatever
level; either through the pure enjoyment of sport and recreation
or if a youngster has a talent to ensure they are able to travel
up the ladder to future success.
In the debate that is underway in both Houses and
certainly, as you indicated it seems to be at the moment in Number
10 and between Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove and the Prime Minister,
I hope that there will be a recognition of the vital importance
of prioritising school sport and making sure that, as in history,
the clubs and the governing bodies are heavily engaged with head
teachers who are clearly going to be given a mandate to fund what
they need within their schools, according to what I read anyway.
The work that the Youth Sport Trust has done in delivering people
to assist in that process clearly has a role to play.
It seems to me that if you move to a head teacher
determining the outcome then let that head teacher determine where
best practice exists and bring those, for example, from the Youth
Sport Trust and the clubs and the governing bodies—clubs'
governing bodies for over 100 years have helped schools—and
the outstanding school sports associations that run competitive
sports and the governing bodies that run competitive school sport
at national level should be encouraged. There's a role for everybody
to play in this and if Government is going to move to empower
heads to make the decision then I'll be lobbying strongly to make
sure that all the organisations I've just mentioned have a role
to play in that process.
Tim Reddish: Can
I just add, from the pipeline for Paralympic sport it's imperative
that we get the youth and our youngsters involved in physical
activity and participating in sport at a school level. To go back
to what I said earlier, there are lots of opportunities and there
are going to be increased opportunities for the school's competitive
programme. However, they have to participate first. Some of our
youngsters have both social and physical barriers to stop them
participating and one of the ways of unblocking that has been
through the delivery, through the school sports partnership. I'm
not here to make a decision about how it's delivered. All I want
to see is that every youngster with a disability or an impairment
that is in school—regardless of whether it's private sector,
whether it's independent, whether it's mainstream or special education—all
have the opportunity to succeed or fail in a physical activity
of their choice.
Paul Farrelly: I think
you couldn't have given a stronger signal in the debate. That's
been helpful, thank you.
Q113 Dr Coffey: You
mentioned earlier about sports from the home teams and you have
to have a credible option to put forward; not every sport will
be covered. I think the British public would find it incredible
if there wasn't a football team for Team GB. Now, I understand
the historic reasons why, but I also am of the understanding that
domestic FA associations have an informal agreement that would
allow basically a team of England-only players but the BOA is
blocking this. Do you really want to be in the spotlight for blocking
football coming to London 2012?
Lord Moynihan:
With respect, I think you have been misinformed. The BOA—
Q114 Dr Coffey: So
you are happy to endorse a team made up of England-only players?
Lord Moynihan:
Let me clarify, if I may, for the Committee through the Chair,
the position the British Olympic Association take on this. We
intend to enter both a men's and a women's British team into the
Olympic Games in London 2012 and that British team needs to be
the best talent we can produce, selected from the home nations.
We are not the English Olympic Committee. We are the British Olympic
Committee. We look after the best of British athletes in the United
Kingdom as a whole and you would be the first to criticise me
if I was to discriminate against an outstanding athlete who had
the opportunity to participate in the Olympic Games by saying,
"I refuse to allow a Scottish footballer or a Welsh footballer
or a footballer from Northern Ireland to participate." You
would be as strong in your criticism of me on that basis as you
would if I was to discriminate on the basis of religion or colour
or creed. The reality is that we would be in total breach of the
Olympic Charter. So we are in a position whereby we need to select
the best athletes available.
Now, if all the best athletes in a football team
happened to be, for the sake of argument, English and they were
selected on merit then we are completely happy to take whichever
team is selected. If they were all from Wales and selected on
merit then we would take that team. It is the selection on merit
that matters to us. We are not in a position to discriminate and
discrimination is in breach of the Olympic Charter. So we will
take the best team we can and the FA, who is the governing body
on the National Olympic Committee responsible for running the
selection programme for the teams, will clearly adhere to the
Olympic Charter.
Q115 Dr Coffey: So
how are you going to resolve this with the domestic football associations?
Are you leaving it in the hands of the FA?
Lord Moynihan:
It is for the Football Association to speak to the domestic football
associations to determine how to implement that clear policy and
to avoid discrimination in any form.
Q116 Dr Coffey: So
you can assure this Committee that if all the best footballers
were English, you would not succumb to perceived political pressure
to include footballers from the other nations just for the sake
of diversity or to make the team look more British? If all the
best players happened to be Scottish or if all the best players
happened to be English, you would select the team on that basis
and you would be prepared to take the flak from papers in other
nations of the United Kingdom whose players were not selected
on the basis of pure merit?
Lord Moynihan:
The answer is: we select on merit. If that leads to flak it won't
be the first time in my life that I've received flak on matters
to do with sport. Yes, of course, we must select on merit and
I would challenge any member of your Committee to argue that I
shouldn't.
Q117 Jim Sheridan:
Press reports are that Alex McLeish would be delighted to manage
a GB team but the problem lies, certainly with the SFA, that I
think they have told their players that if they do voluntarily
play for a GB team then they will be discriminated against.
Lord Moynihan:
Good. If they won't be discriminated against that is extremely
good news. If they were—
Jim Sheridan: They will
be.
Lord Moynihan:
They will be discriminated against?
Jim Sheridan: Yes—
Lord Moynihan:
If a home nation football association was to discriminate against
a player on that basis then that player, I expect, would have
recourse. That isn't a matter for the BOA. It would be a matter
for the player and the Football Association concerned. But I hope
reason will prevail on this. It must prevail. We will have, I'm
sure, an outstanding team and I think both the men's and women's
teams have prospects of doing outstandingly well in the Games
and we must encourage and inspire all young professional footballers
to have the opportunity to play in that team and we must work
carefully with the home nations to overcome any residual concerns.
I'm sensitive to their concerns. I'm very sensitive
to the fact that a number of the home nations feel that their
status within the international football world would be in jeopardy.
I recognise that and that is one of the reasons why we've worked
with FIFA to make sure that letters went out to them making absolutely
clear to them that there was no threat whatsoever to their autonomy
and to their independence in playing in Scotland, Wales, Northern
Ireland and England. Clearly England doesn't feel there is any
threat and that is because of the clear, unequivocal assertions
that have been given by FIFA.
I believe that if we need to repeat those assertions
or we need to do some further work to give comfort to the home
nations we should do that, because I respect their concerns and
I think those concerns need to be overcome. But I think this is
now an issue that can be dealt with in the interests of the athletes.
After all, all officials are there ultimately to look after the
interests of the athletes and if we have an outstanding Scottish
footballer who is selected I'd very much hope there would be no
discrimination or action taken against him for being part of Team
GB and especially when we have outstanding Scottish athletes like
Chris Hoy who, in his own right, has done so much for the success
of Team GB and British Olympic sport over the years.
Q118 Paul Farrelly:
It is a thorny problem and I think we are all impressed by your
determination that we must have a team. If efforts flag and the
politicking holds sway again, can you see yourself saying, "Come
on, 2012 is Britain's World Cup. Forget Brazil, forget Russia
certainly. This is when football is coming home"?
Lord Moynihan:
There have been some good articles written by far more knowledgeable
football writers than I who have argued very strongly that if
you look, for example, at Brazil, Argentina, South American countries,
they take the Olympic football team as an exceptionally important
part of their national team going to a Games, partially because
it is weighted heavily towards young athletes, young players.
That gives those young players an exposure in the Olympic Games
which has helped them move forward in their professional careers.
So it's an integral part of the development pathway for many countries
to send their teams to play football in the Olympic Games. I would
hope we move towards that and I'm confident we will. We have an
outstanding women's team at the moment who have done exceptionally
well. It was tragic that they weren't selected, in my view, for
Beijing. I think the women's team will do outstandingly well in
London.
Chair: I thank both of
you very much for coming this morning.
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