The Welsh Sports Association (WSA) would like to thank Wales Week London for supporting us last month, as we hosted our ‘Investment in Welsh Sport’ event at the Barbican Centre.
The WSA is a proud partner of Wales Week; but interestingly the ‘Investment in Welsh Sport’ event was the first the WSA has hosted at Wales Week London.
We are grateful to the charismatic Adrian Davies who compered the evening, while a huge thank you must also go to our panel of guest speakers, whose wealth of expertise and experience ensured the event was of great value to all attendees.
Among our esteemed panellists, we heard from CEO of the FAW Noel Mooney; international sport, media and entertainment rights expert Richard Davies; Managing Director of Sports Industry Group Dylan Pugh; and the WSA’s very own CEO Victoria Ward discuss a range of topics surrounding the event’s primary focus.
There was an insightful panel discussion which included strategic insights from the FAW and an honest assessment of the current state of play of grassroots sports clubs in Wales; this dovetailed nicely with Victoria’s key points highlighting the current barriers to sport faced by so many, especially as we now emerge from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Victoria highlighted that families living in poverty in Wales, even before the Pandemic struck, had to make do with a weekly budget of just £3.21 to spend on sports and physical activity, while a third of all children in Wales are enduring poverty – clearly demonstrating the need for support and collective thinking, as well as introducing the need for a Welsh Sports Foundation which is due to launch in 2022.
The panel also discussed a range of innovative solutions, emerging technology, and what we must do as a sector to address challenges being faced, and how sponsors and partners can support the sector in doing so.
All of these fascinating messages were delivered and engaged with by our audience, to whom we are, of course, also thankful; we hope everyone who attended enjoyed their time!
A final thank you must also go to Wales Week founders, Dan Langford and Mike Jordan, without whom our event, and such a generally fantastic celebration of Welsh culture, would simply not have been possible. We look forward to seeing you all again next year!
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