The Sport and Social Responsibility Summit

‘Healthy Stadia are …..those which promote the health of visitors, fans, players, employees and the surrounding community… places where people can go to have a positive healthy experience playing or watching sport’

Sport plays an important role within society, and sporting stadia are iconic within their communities. Millions of people across Europe attend a sports stadium each week to watch their team, to work, to volunteer or to use the stadium’s facilities. The European Healthy Stadia Network aims to support sports stadia across Europe to promote public health, social and environmental initiatives to the mutual benefit of fans, staff, local communities and clubs/stadia themselves.

The Network builds upon a highly successful 30 month pilot project funded by the European Commission that has worked in eight European countries develop guidence for stadia to roll out healthy initiatives with the support of local service providers. The Network already has over 150 member organisations, including UK clubs and stadia such as Liverpool FC, Cardiff City FC, Lord’s Cricket Ground and St Helen’s RLFC, and European clubs such as AC and Inter Milan, FC Sevilla and the national Finnair Stadium in Helsinki.

 The Network has the following broad aims and objectives:

•      Promoting healthier lifestyle, social and environmental practices to stadia and increasing the recognition of corporate and social responsibilities towards fans, staff, and local communities

•      Supporting stadia and national governing bodies/leagues to form successful partnerships with key stakeholders (health agencies, local authorities, transport providers and the third sector) to roll out healthy initiatives

•      Development of specialist guidance documents for stadia to help the planning, roll out and evaluation of established initiatives, e.g. active travel plans to and from stadia

•      To collate and disseminate new developments and examples of current practice across the Network and to act as a communication and signposting hub for key stakeholders

•      Supporting national governing bodies of sport and sports stadia to develop health policies and strategies through public health consultancy offered by the Network.

If you would like your organisation to become a member of the European Healthy Stadia Network, or have any questions about Healthy Stadia and our programme of work, please contact us using the details below. We look forward to working with you.

Matthew Philpott - European Healthy Stadia Network

matthew.philpott@healthystadia.eu Tel: +44 (0) 151 928 7820