Community sports organisations are being asked to tell a DCMS committee inquiry how the Coronavirus pandemic has impacted them.
Written submissions are being invited for the forthcoming inquiry entitled ‘Sport in our Communities’, with a November 16 deadline.
Many organisations have been hit hard as a result of restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus, resulting in a lack of vital income from a variety of sources, from memberships and subscriptions to funding from contracts.
FOCUS
The inquiry will consider how sport under the remits of UK Sport and Sport England is funded and governed, and DCMS committee chair Julian Knight says it will look especially at those clubs and groups “whose viability was in doubt even before the pandemic”.
He said: “We've heard a lot about Covid's impact on elite professional sport but we want to shift the focus to our communities - our venues, clubs and local teams, who play football, rugby or cricket.
SUPPORT
“Grassroots sport has been hit particularly hard by lockdown and concerns over public health. We cannot take for granted the survival of clubs that offer so much to the people who engage with them and support them.
“We'll be looking at what help is needed now to safeguard sports clubs especially those whose viability was in doubt even before the pandemic. We'll be questioning the organisations whose role it is to actively support them and asking when it comes to spending public money, how far up the ladder should community sport come?”
