'Disabled access to sport must be improved'[fr][de] 

"It is hard for disabled people to do sports at recreational level, because of physical access as well as attitudes of people who run sport clubs and centres. It is very hard for young people to get integrated into sports clubs," explained Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, 11-time Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair athletics, in an interview with EurActiv.

She, and another Paralympian, Aron Anderson, member of Swedish national sledge hockey team, both Visa sponsored athletes, were invited to the Parliament's Sport intergroup meeting on 29 November 2006 to talk about access to sporting facilities of people with disabilities and to raise awareness of Paralympics. (The Paralympic Games are "an elite multi-sport sport event for athletes with physical disabilities" (see Wikipedia ) and the prefix 'para' derives from 'parallel to the Olympic Games'.)

"Media and public perception of the Paralympic games was not very good at the beginning (late 80s'). I've seen a big change since but there's still a long way to go in raising awareness of the Paralympics in terms of support for young athletes, said Grey-Thompson. "There are huge difference between EU member states in their support to Paralympics. Governments also support the Olympic games far more than the Paralympics," added Anderson. The Paralympians called for the EU to put pressure on national governments' sport ministries so that they would improve disabled peoples' access to sport and would fund Paralympics as much as the Olympic games. 

The next day, the athletes got precious support from the European Parliament as it adopted, on 30 November 2006, a report on the situation of people with disabilities in the enlarged EU . The report calls on the Commission and the member states to encourage the active involvement of people with disabilities in sport - stressing the importance of sport as a factor for improving the quality of life, self-esteem, independence and social integration of people with disabilities. 

The report also calls on the member states to make sports facilities more accessible, remove obstacles to participation by young people with disabilities in sports activities, provide incentives for their greater involvement in sport and promote sports events and competitions for people with disabilities such as the Paralympic Games . 

To read the full interview with Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Aron Anderson, click here.

Asked why Visa sponsors Paralympics, Colin Grannell, executive vice president of Visa Europe, said the reasons for are the same as for Visa sponsoring the Olympic games "it is about elite sport," he said. "Of course, the question at the beginning was to know whether we would get a good return for our business investment by doing it, because the media attention for the Paralympics is lot less than for the Olympics. However, we decided to do this over the long term and I think that in the future we'll see the Paralympics become much bigger." 

Grannell also explained that there's a change operating in sponsorship. Before, companies were happy to see their brands displayed in events or so, but now, "competition in business means that your brand and your business need to stand out and mean something to general public. One has to see these large corporates do something real in terms of supporting the society. Just brand-exposure is not enough." However, he believes it is very complicated for corporates to get involved in sport sponsoring, because "in order to get involved, you need to understand the hierarchy of sports politics, the sports governing bodies, the issues they manage and the committees and sports bodies that generate the athletes and the sport".

MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, president of the Parliament's Sports intergroup: "The whole idea of meetings like the one held today is to build a network. We, the MEPs represent hundreds of millions of people across the EU. A small minority of those have disabilities and yet go on with life. We have here today two Paralympic athletes telling us what can be achieved with determination and a little bit of help. And, hopefully, by networking all these different groups of people together, we can make it slightly easier for other people in similar situation to achieve what these two athletes have achieved."

Regards the EU's upcoming White Paper on sport: "I'd like to think that it will talk about accessibility, which is a very important issue, not only for disabled athletes but also for women and kids across Europe," said Heaton-Harris. 

Asked whether one should, in general, legislate or 'incentivise' in sports: "It is really difficult to find the right balance. Sport is one of these strange things that you could easily snuff out if you cause it too much problems because it is basically created, staffed and run by volunteers and participated at individual level by most people. So it is a very difficult thing to legislate for. But it would be great if we could improve accessibility to sports.