Dai Havard
Main Page: Dai Havard (Labour - Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney)(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I am deliberately wearing a Merthyr rugby club tie this morning, and I have come to talk about Wales, women and football.
I am wearing the tie because I am a supporter of the soccer club. That sounds bizarre, and it is bizarre, in the sense that Merthyr is a particular place. It has always had an interest in both games, both of which flourish in the town. It is odd, perhaps, to see that in a Welsh valley town. Merthyr soccer club is 100 years old, and is now a trust. It has struggled, kicking and screaming, to get to that position, and it needs assistance. This is not just about Liverpool, Arsenal, London or England. It is about something bigger than that. It is about the game of football, which is also about health and community. It is not about potentates, oligarchs and bandits of various descriptions from around the world manipulating the UK tax regime to make profit. That is not really what it is about. Football has a power beyond that, and we need to get a regulatory framework in place at the top of the game because the money-making process at the top, which we all know is now the real power of sport, perverts and distorts the whole of a process that could be something much greater than that.
Let us be clear on the business of sharing facilities. If we democratise the process a little and speak to the people who are really interested in the game of football, and to those who actually play it, we find that what they really want is for the game to flourish, not for it to be perverted by some process. One of my local pubs has now formed its own team. People are trying to play football—they want to do it—but they are not being helped to do so.
When Merthyr soccer club was in private ownership, it received some television money. They had one game in the FA cup, because they play in the English pyramid—they do not play in the Welsh league. I believe they lost 1-0 to Walsall. Sky was bumping gums about Merthyr Tydfil a lot yesterday. It did one thing for Merthyr: it provided that one game. In one night, a little bit of Sky TV money provided two years’ revenue. Where did the money go? I have no idea. It went into some financial soup that the owner of the club was involved with at the time. There was no transparency.
The one word that we need to hang on to in all of this is “transparency”. We need a process in which people can see what is happening in the game. They will then understand it, and they will exert pressure. A social enterprise model would be the right one for many places. It would build the community, and clubs would run academies if we allowed them to—they have a lot to say about education—and run them properly. We know all those things, so that model is crucial.
I am afraid that, yes, television money has to be part of the discussion. The situation is difficult and unfortunate, but television money is perverting the process—that and the tax regime.
I ask the Minister to deal with those three things: television, tax and transparency. Obviously, everyone is waiting for him to say what he will do. Was he serious when he referred during the summer to drinking in the last chance saloon? I would like to know what plans the clubs have come up with for reforming themselves. If they do not do that, my money is on him as the man to do it for them.