7. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the impact that the Champions League final will have on the national strategy for community sport? OAQ(5)0167(HWS)

Major sporting events can provide a step on our journey toward a healthy and active nation. The UEFA Champions League final is one of the biggest and most prestigious sporting events worldwide. The FAW Trust is working with partners to use the event to inspire more people to play football and sport, thereby supporting active communities.

Thanks for your answer, Minister; that is encouraging. We did touch on this with the First Minister’s questions yesterday—there’s a broader issue of the connection between professional sports clubs, such as our professional football clubs, and their activities to promote grass-roots sport, to improve health targets and things like that. So, I wondered what reflections you’d had on the progress the Welsh Government is making in that area.

I thank you for that question. I do think there will be some really tangible benefits from hosting the UEFA Champions League final. For example, there’ll be a maxi-pitch, which is a gift from UEFA to the city of Cardiff for hosting the event, and that will be in Grangetown. It will be free to use for communities; I think that’s really important. We’ll also have the floating pitch out in Cardiff Bay and that’s going to be used to host a legends match. It will also be used by local community groups and teams including refugee teams, deaf squads, women and girls teams, teams for people with a learning disability, walking football and youth teams, amongst others as well. So, there’s the opportunity there to really support and promote grass-roots football as a result of this particular sporting event.

In addition, as well, it’s inspired the creation of a whole new set of specially designed cross-curriculum materials by the Football Association of Wales, which is being disseminated to 1,300 schools across Wales in the run-up to the event. That certainly will enhance the curriculum and engage over 136,000 children as well, using the power of sport to really engage with children and to help learning as well.

I’m also really looking forward to the women’s final as well. We have a festival for women on the same day, so 2,500 women and girls will be participating in that football festival on the day of the final as well. So, lots of opportunity there to engage people who perhaps haven’t tried football before, with that particular sport.

I’m also really encouraged by the work that’s going on through the UEFA champions as well as part of their volunteer programme, so using the power of sport and the enthusiasm of the final as well to help people develop skills that are transferrable beyond football as well in terms of volunteering in their local communities after the event has been and gone.