Bridge players make their bid for card game’s recognition as a sport

The Royal Courts of Justice will not be asked to decide if bridge is a sport – only whether it was reasonable for Sport England to have ruled it was not.

It says Parliament has recognized “mind sports” that promote mental skills and contends that bridge has known health benefits.

A High Court judge has been asked to review Sport England’s decision that bridge was not a sport.

“It would also encourage young people to play the game”.

The French and Chinese insist pigeon racing is a sport – and Holland, Ireland and Poland have all given bridge sporting status.

He said: “It is not right for mind sports like bridge to be ghettoised in a sense”. If the card game is to be recognised as a sport it would open the route to grants from public funds for bridge tournaments and also for the EBU and other bridge bodies, representing 300,000 people in the United Kingdom who enjoy a hand or two, to qualify for valuable tax exemptions. It adopted a policy as to which sports it would recognise in order to focus its effort and resources.

In addition organisers of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo have invited a number of disciplines, including chess and bridge, to apply for inclusion in the games.

They argue that in bridge, or chess, someone else could make your move or lay your card for you, and that you should not be able to compete in sport “by proxy”.

Phil Smith, director of Sport England, told BBC Radio 5 live the argument ultimately came down to money and his organisation must spend its “precious funding” on activities which improve physical health.

“If and to the extent that Her Majesty’s government wishes to provide support to bridge, it will do so”.

Clayton conceded that darts did involve a level of physical skill not required in bridge, but that was not what the definition required.

Jeremy Dhondy, a leading bridge player and EBU chairman, said: “We hope that this hearing will allow bridge to be recognised in the way that it should”.

Leaving aside the lifting of pints of beer, he suggested, the amount of physical activity involved in playing darts was arguably not much greater than that involved in shuffling and dealing cards to play bridge.