Football Association and Bet365

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord makes important points about the timing of all of this, and I acknowledge the important role that your Lordships’ House has played in bringing issues of problem gambling to the fore. I am sure that noble Lords will continue to do that. The noble Lord talked about timing. My honourable friend the Minister for Sport in the other place spoke to the FA this morning and will be meeting its representatives next week. He made it extremely clear that he expects them to explore every possible avenue to bring this situation to an end as quickly as possible.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the general tone of what has been said so far about gambling being potentially damaging and that we should not be advertising it on something that is seen by many of the young. But will the Government undertake to remove some of the financial burden that falls on groups such as the FA to make sure that we can play grass-roots sport? The FA has to fund and support grass-roots pitches when, in places such as Germany, local government does that. Will the Government look round and see that government action will make this sort of activity more likely if you are mean with supporting things such as grass-roots sport?

[Baroness Barran]

The Government have taken the issue of grass-roots sport very seriously and recently announced more than £500 million of investment in exactly that.