Breaking Down Barriers To Sport
The benefits of sport and physical activity are well-documented.
Being active is good for our physical and mental health and can help us to form communities and reduce isolation and loneliness.
However, taking part in sport and physical activity is not always easy. Too many barriers remain, such as a lack of facilities and greenspace, prohibitive costs and poor public transport. The Scottish Greens believe access to space where people can walk, run, play, wheel and cycle is a right, not a privilege. We will deliver this by protecting our greenspace and investing in community facilities.
We see sport not as an afterthought but as a worthwhile investment, the return on which will be happier, healthier people who are able to take pride in Scotland’s sporting achievements, either at the local or national level.
We believe sport should be about the joy in taking part in physical activity, not about huge profits or industries which harm our health and extract wealth from sporting achievements. That’s why we want to see sport take place in an environment which promotes health, free from alcohol and gambling sponsorship.
We believe in the power of grassroots sports and fan ownership of clubs and we want to reduce the cost of attending sporting events. Everyone should benefit from watching their local or national team play.
- Provide real terms increase and multi-year funding for sports and active living organisations, to give greater stability to the sector.
- Introduce the Children’s Sports Card to provide affordable access to recreational or sporting activities for all school-age children, regardless of their economic and social circumstances.
- Work with Scottish Premier League football clubs to introduce a price cap of £25 for travelling away fans, ensuring no one is priced out of Scotland’s national game.
- Introduce free public transport for ticket holders at major sporting and cultural events.
- Ensure that all major sporting events are broadcast on free-to-air channels to encourage participation and unity.
- Widen access to exercise options in local communities for disabled people and embed disabled sport knowledge in public health and leisure settings.
- Empower fans to have an ownership stake in their football or sports clubs, through enacting the clause in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act that gives fans the right to buy.
- Ensure provision of accessible, affordable and fit for purpose sports facilities, pitches, parks and greenspace is a mandatory consideration for any new major planning request, such as the building of a housing estate and protect existing provision from downgrading or closure.
- A new taxation on betting in sport to ensure that a proportion of all sports betting is re-invested into grassroots sport.
- Ban health harming industries, such as alcohol and gambling, from sponsoring sport.
