It is depressing that sport has been marginalised in the referendum debate – Telegraph.co.uk

The debate on Europe quintessentially echoes the tugging forces of the human condition. The current divisions on Europe are not new and the view from this side of the Channel has tended to pinball between boarding the train to an unknown destination and not wanting to be left alone on the platform. While the big political beasts of the jungle joust to convince us of their vision of Britain’s place in the international mix, most of us are left to calibrate the competing claims. Actually I don’t believe the winning team will breast the tape because arguments about marginal rates of tax or bucket-shop holidays win the day. As in all elections, gut instinct normally prevails – no matter the certitudes of politicians, which often just create a healthy nervousness among voters. My fellow columnist and former boss, William Hague, has always understood this: “In Europe but not run by Europe”, his strapline, not the work of an agency by the way, won the European election of 1999. This is probably the territory most of us are still pragmatically camped on.

Few parts of our lives have not been touched on by the combatants in the tussle, everything from our safety on the streets of Britain to job losses, migrant workers and the repatriation of powers. The one area that does seem to have been sidestepped in the debate, which I find surprising and a little depressing, is sport.

In the last decade, there has been little argument on all sides of the political divide that sport matters through its virtues and its value, although of late maybe not entirely its values. The delivery of an Olympic Games four years ago certainly cemented this view in Whitehall.

The day after the 2016 football European Championship group stage finishes and the post-mortems or round-of-16 previews are being crafted, Britons will vote in the European referendum. If sport does matter so much, why has the debate been almost entirely a sport-free zone? Surely it is worthy of a seat in the debating chamber.

Of course, a vote to leave the European Union doesn’t mean the divorce is immediate but would it not signal a change in the way Europe sees and interacts with us when it comes to sport? Since its inception in 1992, the Premier League has been one of the great success stories of world sport. It sits at the top of the heap on any index of wealth, reach, attendance and global audience. As Richard Scudamore, the Premier League’s chief executive has said, “this success is built on internationalism”. Would that be impacted in a post-Brexit Britain?

I have read little or nothing in the lead-up to the vote on the value of television deals in football or elsewhere or sponsorship rate cards, but the sports ecosystem covers much more than our elite sports, it embraces schools, clubs, coaches, volunteers, media, service providers, manufacturers, consumers and all this in turn plays its part in our nation’s health and wellbeing. As a former member of parliament, I often sought European funds to build or refurbish sports facilities in my constituency. Could we be sure that if, as the proponents of Brexit claim, we would save on our contribution to EU membership, that any shortfall in European funding to sport would be met through our domestic coffers? The EU policy for sport is based on harmonisation across the community and covers some of the most pressing issues like anti-doping, governance, social inclusion and the Council of Europe’s sport charter and its code for sports’ ethics. Would Britain’s signature still matter? These are just a few of the issues that are surely worthy of at least passing discussion.

Maybe it is time for both sides of the argument to address Britain’s sporting future in both eventualities. Come June, there needs to be more focus on sport than the progress of three of our home nations navigating their way in a European Championship.