Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. May I associate myself with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Minister? She spoke eloquently about the importance of sport to men and women, boys and girls, and particularly to disabled people—everyone—as well as about the lifelong benefits that sport can give. I hope that the whole House will support her endeavours on this important subject.

In the time available to me—many other colleagues want to speak—I will cover three areas. First, I want to pay tribute to Paralympians and Olympians after the summer’s success. Secondly, I will highlight some of the wonderful achievements of local sportsmen and women from the Reading area and the importance of grassroots sport in our community. Finally, I will call for the owner of Reading football club to speed up the sale of the club, which is a huge local issue, and I thank my hon. Friend for her unstinting support on this important matter.

I start with the amazing success of our local Paralympians at this summer’s Paralympic games. I mention in particular Gregg Stevenson, a Paralympic rower who trains in Caversham, where the British rowing base is. Gregg has been through enormous challenges in life, yet he won gold for GB in the PR2 mixed double sculls. He suffered disability in 2009 while he was a member of the 59 Commando Squadron in the Royal Engineers through a bomb blast in Afghanistan, which caused him to lose both legs. He has come back from that tragedy to become a Paralympic rower. It is important to remember the contribution of our service personnel, as well as other disabled sportspeople. What an amazing achievement for him.

While I have the opportunity, I would also like to mention Ed Fuller, another Paralympic rower training locally who attended the University of Reading. He was one of the crew who won gold for ParalympicsGB in the mixed coxed four events in Paris. I also praise Will Arnott, a Paralympian from our community who plays boccia—an unusual precision ball sport, similar to bowls but less well known—for his hard work and dedication, and his success this summer.

Our Paralympians are all wonderful ambassadors for sport. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their work for ParalympicsGB to raise the profile of the Paralympics, and para sport in general, among young and older people, both in the Reading area and across the country. I appreciate that colleagues are lining up to speak, but I would like to mention briefly a few prominent sportswomen from our community and say a little about grassroots sports. I thank Fran Kirby for her work in football, including for the Lionesses. She plays for Brighton & Hove Albion now, but she started as a Reading player and went to school locally at Caversham Park primary school. She is much loved in our community, and it is worth paying tribute to amazing stars like her, who blaze a trail for other women. I also thank Amanda Handisides, who is a Team GB ice hockey player, and of course Morgan Lake, who was born in Reading. She is a well-known high jumper who has represented GB on many occasions.

I also mention our wonderful grassroots sports. I cannot do justice to all of them, but I thank our local teams in football, hockey, cricket and many other sports for their enduring work at the grassroots. In a sense, I have to declare an interest: my family and I have benefited from it.

I turn briefly to Reading football club. Let me tell the story of what has happened, and call for action from the owner, Mr Dai Yongge, who has delayed selling the club, which has caused huge problems for fans, players and the club. Reading is one of the oldest clubs in the football league, yet it is in real difficulty. We have had a successful career and an illustrious history over many years, including two spells in the premiership, the highest-ever point tally achieved in the championship and numerous other successes. Sadly, we have never got to an FA cup final, but we have had some amazing cup runs, yet unfortunately our club has fallen into a difficult period because of irresponsible ownership.

Reading’s case is similar to that of a number of other clubs, as I know from working with colleagues. I am glad to see that the previous Government’s Football Governance Bill has been brought back by our Front-Bench team, and I hope that soon becomes law and deals with the problem of irresponsible ownership, which has been experienced across the country by a number of clubs, many of them in medium-sized towns and cities. I know other colleagues have strong feelings about that.

Before I call for action from Mr Yongge, I point out how difficult this situation has been. The reason why the club has been so badly affected by his ownership is repeated financial mismanagement: he failed to pay His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on time and, as a result, points were deducted, meaning that Reading were relegated from the championship to league one. That was not because of anything that happened on the pitch. That is grossly unfair on the club, the players and local fans—it is completely and utterly unacceptable. The same thing could happen to other clubs in the football league in exactly the same way, due to the same issues of irresponsible ownership, and of owners failing to live up to the standards that they should be adhering to.

Sadly, the powers available to the English Football League are not as great as they might be, and I hope that the Bill, which will hopefully come to Parliament shortly, will tackle this and set a high bar for ownership. It is interesting that Mr Yongge was not allowed to buy Hull City; the Premier League was able to intervene to avoid that. The EFL did not have the power at the time to stop him buying Reading, and that is an absolute tragedy for our fans, the players and the club. I hope something can be done about it.

We have been hoping for a sale since last October. The former Member for Bracknell and I attended a march in Reading town centre with several thousand fans last October, and we managed accidentally to stop all traffic on a local A road. The fans sent a strong message to Mr Yongge that he needed to get on with selling the club, finding a preferred bidder and working with them to move things on, so that a new owner could invest in the club. In the last year, the situation has not been properly addressed. He has been in discussion with Rob Couhig, the former owner of Wycombe Wanderers, but sadly that fell through a few days ago. It has been announced that a new preferred bidder has come forward. I urge Mr Yongge to take all reasonable steps to engage with the new preferred bidder quickly, and to conclude a sale, so that we can move on, take our wonderful club forward, and get it back up to the premiership, ideally, though the championship will do for the moment. I urge him to get on with selling the club and to take action on behalf of the people of Reading.

I would like once again to show my appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians. They do amazing work representing this country and are ambassadors for sport across the world. I also thank local sportsmen and women, and young people involved in sport. Finally, once again, I call for a quick sale of Reading FC.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Max Wilkinson.