Minister for Sports clarifies what it means to have a ‘home of’ in sport on the Rock

Minister for Sport Leslie Bruzon, during the launch of the new wooden sports floor at the Tercentenary Sports Hall, clarified the meaning of “a home for sport”, brushing away the myth that any sport can dictate the use of a stadia.

Having inherited a legacy upon taking over the role of Sports Minister, where many sports have called specific stadia their home, this has at times led to controversy over the use of facilities, alongside demands for “homes” for other sports without their own.

When asked by this newspaper whether it was the correct way of going about committing to provide homes for different sports, Mr Bruzon explained, “I think it is very important to clarify when we say home. This, for example, is and will always be, as far as I am concerned, the home of basketball. That does not mean that we don’t have other sports playing here. Apart from basketball, we have netball, volleyball, futsal and badminton and so on and so forth. So when we say the home of, it does not mean it is not shared by others.”

When pressed further and asked if calling a stadia a home was merely in name and not in exclusive use, he agreed that this was “precisely” what was meant by it.

“If you look at Europa, for example, you have the home of squash, which you cannot really share with any other sport because of the nature of squash. But the main hall is the home of badminton as much as it is the home of gymnastics. So we have the ‘home of’, but we do not have enough stadia to say that for every association, so it is shared between every sport.”

Asked whether there was an “air of entitlement” in sport following recent suggestions by some associations that facilities managers of stadia were there to provide on the demands of their sport, with no consideration of costs, whilst not themselves providing any financial support towards these costs, and whether there was a need to address such ideas, Mr Bruzon was cautious in his response, although signalling that there needed to be a reality check on how things were presently working in Gibraltar.

Responding directly to questions put by this newspaper, Mr Bruzon explained before the media at the recent launch of the Tercentenary Sports Hall flooring:

“I will be careful on what I say about an air of entitlement because it supersedes sports generally. Look, I think this is a prime example. We laid the floor originally for, as you say, a legacy of the Netball World Youth Cup. We weren’t happy with the floor, we had issues with the event supplier, the floor was removed and it was replaced again. So it is a brand new floor replacing what was a brand new floor.

“Sports in this complex had to put up with the consequences of this — basketball, netball, volleyball, badminton, everyone. Everyone needed to understand and it was an inconvenience to them.

“And look, where we have other associations financially contributing towards the maintenance and upkeep of our facilities, let’s be honest, the GFA have invested over £3 million into upgrades at Europa. Whether we like it or not, it’s there. Therefore it benefits the whole community because if another sport holds an event on the main pitch at Europa, they now have extra seating facilities, which have been funded by another association. It benefits our community at large.

“We are now getting a new astroturf pitch at Europa and again it is being paid for by them, but it’s going to be used by rugby, it’s going to be used by cricket and whoever else is going to use the facilities. So yes, we do have to share facilities and where possible, if we can get people to contribute towards the use of facilities in one way or another, then that is great for the community.”