The next item on our agenda is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure on the Champions League final. I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Ken Skates, to make his statement. Ken Skates.

Diolch, Presiding Officer. In a month’s time, Cardiff and Wales will host the UEFA Champions League final, one of the biggest and most prestigious sporting events in the world, and the biggest single sporting event in the world in 2017. The men’s final on 3 June will attract a global live tv audience of 200 million and an estimated additional 170,000 visitors to our capital city. Members will have seen the exciting arrival of the trophies in Wales two weeks ago, and they are currently touring the nation, providing a unique opportunity for our communities to engage with the event. Yesterday, the trophies visited Porthmadog and Cefn Druids football clubs, and today they have been at a school festival at Ysgol Maes Garmon in Mold. I know the excitement that will have been generated amongst local football fans and the north Wales public more widely. This is another historic first for Wales, kicking off a summer of sporting legends, with the Champions League final closely followed by the ICC Champions Trophy cricket at Glamorgan cricket and the return of the Senior Open Championship in golf to Royal Porthcawl. This demonstrates our ambition and commitment to build Wales’s major event hosting credentials. 

The benefits to Wales will be significant. The event will generate a significant economic impact as a result of the additional visitors coming to Wales. This will include spend in hotels, restaurants, pubs, bars and on travel within the region. The hospitality provision in the city on match day, which includes an estimated 16,000 meals, provides a valuable showcase for Welsh produce. Overall, access to rights and benefits associated with the event provides Wales with an unprecedented incentive with which to engage with key inward investment and business targets.

The extensive media coverage in the lead-up, and of the event itself, will raise Wales’s international profile and reputation. The ‘Road to Cardiff’ strapline and branding has been visible around the world for many months now, clearly evident at every Champions League game and front and centre of each match broadcast. In addition to the millions of tv viewers and the lucky fans able to attend the matches themselves, an estimated 200,000 people will attend the UEFA Champions Festival in Cardiff Bay, a free four-day celebration from Thursday through to Sunday. The festival will provide a high-quality UEFA experience for non-ticket holders to get a chance to see the trophy, engage with the sponsors, acquire limited edition UEFA merchandise and see some of the world’s former footballing greats play a legends match on a floating pitch in Cardiff Bay on Friday 2 June.

As with the trophy tour, we want to spread the positive impact of the event Wales-wide, and the event is now set to inspire a generation, with a set of specially designed cross-curriculum materials being introduced to around 1,000 Welsh schools in the run-up to the event, enhancing the curriculum and engaging with a potential 136,000 young people. Adding to Wales’s credentials as a nation willing to volunteer, 1,500 champions will be part of the volunteer programme that will provide participants with valuable skills that they can take into their place of education or work. The event also provides an important platform for encouraging wider participation. The emphasis given to the women’s final on 1 June at the Cardiff City Stadium, alongside the men’s, and the staging of the final in the same city, will raise the profile of women’s and girls’ football in Wales, encouraging fitness and participation and increasing the status of the sport in the eyes of players, educators and potential sponsors. Around 2,500 women and girls from across Wales will take part in a specially-organised female football festival that will take place on the same day as the UEFA Women’s Champions League final.  For those fans wishing to immerse themselves in the Champions League experience, tickets for the women’s final are still available and it would be great to see a packed stadium giving the players a warm Welsh welcome.

But hosting a mega event like the Champions League final presents significant challenges. Cardiff is the smallest city to have hosted the final and extensive planning has been under way for many months in order to ensure a safe, secure and enjoyable event. The Football Association of Wales is leading a concerted ‘team Wales’ effort, marshalling the considerable support of key partners including South Wales Police, Cardiff council, the Principality Stadium, which is renamed ‘National Stadium of Wales’ for this event, and, of course, Welsh Government.

The event will be staged against a backdrop of an extremely challenging international security landscape, which, tragically, has become more acute in recent weeks. Against this background, the safety and security of everyone attending the events is of paramount importance. South Wales Police, with assistance from neighbouring forces in England and Wales, are leading the largest security operation since the NATO summit. This will inevitably impact upon traffic and pedestrian flow around the city, but the priority is, of course, the safety of residents and visitors alike.

Transport and travel to and around the event also presents a logistical challenge. For this event, transport planning has been made more difficult by not knowing who the finalists will be until three weeks before the event, although we have a much clearer idea following the recent semi-final draw. A carefully planned series of measures is being put in place around the city centre road network in the fortnight leading up to the event and this will cause a certain amount of disruption.

The message is clear: Cardiff will be busier than it ever has been on Saturday 3 June and unnecessary travel by those who are not attending the match should be avoided. A specially commissioned public information campaign is being rolled out to advise residents, businesses and visitors of possible travel and transport disruption and to provide advice on minimising inconvenience, and this is being supported by face-to-face engagement with key target stakeholders.

So, the smallest city ever to host a UEFA Champions League final is set to put on the show of its life during our Year of Legends. Wales is being profiled worldwide to international audiences who may never have considered us previously as a location to visit or do business. We are set to build on Wales’s fantastic performance at last year’s European championships to become embedded in worldwide footballing culture and to be recognised as a highly attractive destination on the world map.

Cabinet Secretary, can I thank you for your statement this afternoon? I think Wales has got a proud history of hosting major sporting events that far exceeds the norm, I think, that would be expected for a country of our size. I fully agree with you, Cabinet Secretary, that it’s a great honour for Cardiff to be hosting this prestigious global event that has, of course, the potential to showcase the best of Wales to the world and have a significant benefit to the Welsh economy and also provide a boost to the tourism industry.

Such major sporting events not only spark our national pride and boost tourism levels but they also raise the issue of supporting the broader public health agenda as well. So, with that in mind, Cabinet Secretary, can you outline what steps the Government has taken since the Euro 2016 success to boost the virtues of an active lifestyle and other benefits of sporting activity, and doing so of course in the face of reduced funding in that area as well?

Economically, the hosting of events such as the Champions League final also creates a fantastic opportunity to advertise Wales as a tourist destination, not only to other Europeans but also across the world. I was pleased to hear that the Welsh Government has also taken steps to showcase our nation at the UEFA Champions Festival and has also invested in cross-curriculum materials for Welsh schools. I was pleased to hear that.

You also referred to the potential for security threats at the championships. Can I also endorse your advice to spectators to remain vigilant and take note of advice from police and security staff?

Finally, I would like to ask what lessons have been learned from hosting previous major events, particularly from a transport perspective. During the Rugby World Cup, the experience of Cardiff was tempered by problems with public transport, with lengthy delays of up to 4 hours in some cases, and incidents of overcrowding, which, I expect, may well have a knock-on effect of putting people off visiting in the future. Now, given the fact that the footfall at Cardiff Central station has increased dramatically in recent years, are you confident that the station is able to cope with the overflow? I'm sure you will agree that we must be careful to avoid a repeat of the incidents. So, can I ask what steps you’ve taken, alongside talking to transport providers, Cardiff city council and tournament organisers, to minimise the disruption for travellers, residents and fans alike?

Can I thank Russell George for his contribution and his questions, and also for his enthusiasm for this and other major events that we’ve hosted in Wales in recent years? We do have a proud record of hosting quality major events of global significance, including the Ryder Cup, for example, which placed Wales on a global map in terms of the country as a golf destination, as well as a raft of major sporting, and, indeed, cultural events, and working to make sure that we take a strategic approach to hosting major events to capture repeat visitors and also to attract new investment to the country and to portray Wales as a place where quality of life is of paramount importance. The benefits of the Champions League final will be considerable, but they won’t be confined to just economic benefits—although the economic impact is assessed to be something in the region of £45 million in the immediate period, and in the immediate aftermath of the Champions League final. But we expect, as a result of hundreds of thousands of people visiting Cardiff, to see future visitor numbers increase accordingly, with more overnight stays as a result of people experiencing the warmest Welsh welcome possible in our capital city.

I think the Member raises a very important point about the importance of the Champions League final, and indeed other major sporting events, to the ‘healthy and active’ agenda that this Government has. It's absolutely essential that we use major sporting events not just to attract people to visit Wales, but also to ensure that people within Wales become more active in their daily lives and to inspire not just a future generation, but current generations as well to be more active and more sporting.

After the Euros last year, the Welsh Government, through Sport Wales, worked with a number of national governing bodies, principally the FAW, in promoting, particularly to under-represented groups, the potential to get involved in football. And as a consequence of continued investment and effort, we've seen a remarkable increase in the number of girls, in particular, who have taken up football. We've seen a far greater increase proportionally in the number of girls registering as football players than women and, indeed, boys. So, clearly, football is becoming far more attractive as a sport, as a form of physical activity, for girls. But we wish to maintain the momentum that has been built up before, during and after the Euros by engaging with schools, as the Member outlined, through the intervention of school curriculum work to ensure that young people become more enthused and more aware of the opportunities that are on their doorstep.

A legacy project of the Champions League final will be the establishment of a community football facility in Cardiff in an appropriate area, which we expect will be utilised by those particularly in disadvantaged areas who may lack free or affordable access to sporting facilities. In the years to come, I would hope that many of those who go on to use this legacy pitch will become registered as footballers themselves. We’ll also use the Champions Festival to promote Wales as a holiday destination and also as a destination in which to invest and to do business. But we've been using the Champions League final as a lever to attract more attention to Wales for many months now. We headlined our presence at the Berlin travel show, for example, with the presence of the Champions League final in Cardiff this June, and we will be doing so during the summer months by tweeting, by making available appropriate content for stakeholder websites to showcase the very best of Wales with photographs, with text and with short videos. We have, and are learning lessons constantly from the major events that we host. I know that one of the concerns that Members representing the Cardiff constituencies have is the use of the field that was used for the Eisteddfod as a Cardiff campsite for the Champions League itself. We’ve learnt a good number of lessons from our experience with the Eisteddfod and we continue to ensure that the park is protected for its users. The campsite is going to be used from Monday May 22, and will operate from 31 May to 5 June. But I would remind Members that activity will be taking place there in preparing the park from 22 May. We’ve prepared a questions and answers sheet, which is available on the bute-park.com website, if any residents or any Assembly Members have any queries.

We’ve also learned a good number of lessons about managing vehicle and train travel. The train operators are working as a joint team for this event. So, Network Rail, Arriva Trains Wales, Great Western Railway, and CrossCountry Trains are working collaboratively with event organisers to ensure that the railways are in a position to manage the demand of an event of this scale. This is an enormous event, and if I can run through some of the figures relating to rail travel in particular, I think it will highlight how much preparation has gone into this particular event: 15,000 more passenger journeys on the rail network post-match will be delivered compared to the Rugby World Cup in 2015; there’ll be 60,000 post-match rail journeys in total, including 21 high-speed train services to London; 25,000 air charter passengers are set to arrive and depart the airports in Cardiff, Birmingham and Bristol, supported by over 450 transfer coaches and two large staging facilities in Cardiff. We’re also arranging new, bespoke park-and-ride schemes, which will cater for 7,500 spaces at Llanwern and Pentwyn, and in addition, there will be 5,000 park-and-walk spaces in the Cardiff Bay area, supporting access directly to the UEFA Champions League Festival.

In addition, 10 per cent of the UK’s available coach market will be utilised for the Champions League final. This is an incredible number of coaches. We estimate something in the region of 1,250, and we are working in collaboration with operators such as National Express to ensure that, across Wales, and across the UK, visitors to Cardiff during the Champions League experience, will have the highest quality experience, and that they will be able to get in and out of Cardiff as seamlessly as possible, and in the shortest time possible. But I would once again urge Members to relay to their constituents that this is an unprecedented event. We should be very proud of this event, but we should also prepare well for it.

I must say I’m personally very excited about the Champions League final coming to Cardiff. I was kicking an official Cardiff 2017 replica football around the garden with a very excited 13-year-old last night. And as happy as I was to contribute £14.99 to the merchandising companies for that particular ball, we want to make sure that Wales is the real beneficiary here. We are talking about one of the biggest sporting events in the world. I’ll never forget watching the last-minute Manchester United win over Bayern Munich in 1999 or Liverpool’s miracle in 2005 in beating AC Milan, but it’s not just those stories that could be repeated here in Wales in a few weeks’ time—those footballing stories—I remember where those games were, and Man United winning in Barcelona, and Liverpool winning in Istanbul. So, Cardiff could become a part of international sporting folklore.

I was talking to some children in Italy a few weeks ago, asking where I was from—‘From Wales. Do you know where Wales is?’ ‘That’s where the Champions League final is being held in a few weeks’ time’, showing the power of the language of football globally. They were also very aware of Wales as the home of Gareth Bale, of course. And may I say how wonderful it would be to see a fit Gareth Bale playing at a Champions League final in his home city? But, in the interests of keeping balance, I’d like to say that, of course, fans from whichever side of Madrid would be more than welcome in Cardiff here for the final. I believe the first leg is being played tonight, of that semifinal, with the decider known to us by a week Wednesday.

Now, I would like to wish all those involved in putting on this Champions League final all the very best in the final few weeks. In particular, I’d like to mention the Football Association of Wales, running the show. And this is a football association that has proved during the Euros, and the run-up to the Euros, last year, how very able they are to capitalise on international sporting exposure.

Just three questions. You mentioned the community facility that will be left as a legacy in Grangetown in Cardiff, the 3G pitch there. The local council has guaranteed that the pitch will be free to use for two years. Beyond that, charges haven’t been ruled out. But frankly, of course, if we’re going to see a real legacy from this, we need free-to-use sports facilities for a lot longer than two years. So, what are you going to be doing to ensure that there is a longer legacy than just the two years use of a modest, but very important, facility to that community, particularly in light of the recently increased charges that we have seen for sports facilities right across Wales?

Secondly, first impressions will be very, very important. We’ll be seeing a lot of visitors to Cardiff. What extra support has been offered to Cardiff council to ensure that litter is picked, that we have a clean, modern city, to await all those football fans?

Finally, the statement notes that Cardiff is the smallest city to have hosted this event. In reality, though, of course, if we take in the wider hinterland—the south Wales Valleys, of course, and the major population there—it probably isn’t the smallest area. But, clearly, to hold events such as this in Cardiff requires infrastructure to be wider than just the city itself—it needs to include the Valleys, strengthening transport infrastructure over a wider area. So, what consideration have you given to making this event benefit the wider surrounding areas, and, with that boost to infrastructure required, not just for this Champions League—we have limited things we can do in the next few weeks—but for the longer term, to support Wales being able to be a player on the global stage for similar events in future?

Can I thank the Member for his enthusiasm as well? I share his excitement—I was in Portmeirion on Sunday, and saw the Champions League roadshow attracting a huge number of young people to the mobile unit that they had, and, again, promoting Cardiff, ensuring that the event is relevant to all parts of Wales.

And, in terms of previous Champions League finals, I’d agree—the places that they are hosted at become recognised worldwide—not just within Europe, but worldwide—and are remembered very fondly for the legendary matches that take place. Istanbul is one that stands out for me personally. I had two brothers who travelled, through various means—by plane, train and automobile—to Istanbul. But they will remember it fondly for the rest of their lives, and so will I, even though I’m not a Liverpool fan—they are, but I’m not. My team is yet to reach a Champions League final, and, sadly, won’t be at this year’s one either. But it is something that catches the imagination and enthusiasm of people, young and old. And I think it’s something that we can be very proud of, right across Wales. I also hope that Gareth Bale will be fit enough, and be part of a team that will make it through the semi-finals and into the final, and that we’ll be able to welcome him to his home city.

In terms of the promotion of this event, this is something that Russell George picked up on, but I’d just like to add as well that in terms of social media activity, this will offer an unparalleled event opportunity to promote Wales as an attractive place to visit, and to live in and to invest in. We’ve already seen, in terms of the Visit Wales website, a considerable increase in the number of unique users, from something in the region of 2 million three years ago to 5 million. We’ve set new and ambitious targets for driving that figure still further, and it’s events such as the Champions League final that are able to attract more people to our websites, generate more interest in our Twitter feeds and our Facebook pages. I expect, as a result of that, with the high-quality content that we’re making available to stakeholders, a greater degree of interest in Wales as a holiday destination and an investment place to stem from the Champions League final. We’ve been hosting as well, and we will continue to host, familiarity trips for key influencers within the media. And I would agree with the Member that the Football Association of Wales has done outstanding work in leading a team Wales effort this year, and in recent years, indeed, in the lead-up to the Euros.

The legacy pitch I think is something that Cardiff should be very excited by and proud of. It’s a decision for the local authority and for local councils as to how they maintain and pay for the costs of maintenance of key community facilities, but the Welsh Government is assisting in this regard by setting within the programme for government the establishment of a challenge fund. This is specifically for those community groups and organisations that can benefit community sport and arts activities. I think this particular facility could be a prime recipient of the challenge fund investment.

I’d agree as well that first impressions count, and Cardiff council are on the steering group. It’s recognised that the city must look not just clean and tidy, but vibrant as well with plenty of banners, bright colours—tasteful colours as well—that convey Cardiff in the way that it wants to be seen around the world as a place rich in culture that is welcoming of all people. But it’s not just Cardiff council that are responsible for ensuring that Cardiff and the region around our capital are clean and tidy. We take responsibility for the trunk roads, and so we’re ensuring that the trunk road network is kept clean and tidy, but also I know that Network Rail have additional teams of their orange armies available to make sure that litter is picked up from tracksides from here through to Bristol, Birmingham and London, ensuring that those first impressions really are the best that we could hope for.

In terms of benefiting the wider community, in particular the Valleys communities, I think the opening of platform 8 at Cardiff Central was crucially important in ensuring that we can attract people into the capital quicker and on services that are more reliable, but the £300 million Cardiff area signalling project I think has also improved resilience and ensured that people can access the Champions League final with a greater degree of confidence this year than potentially happened in previous years. I do think we need to use this event, as we’ve used other major events, as huge opportunities to excite and inspire people to become more physically active, and I do hope that as a result of the work that we are doing, and the FAW are doing as well with schools and with other education and training providers, and with places of work, that we will see more people become more physically active more of the time.

Can I say, as a huge football fan, Cabinet Secretary, like Rhun I’m also hugely excited at the prospect of the Champions League coming to Cardiff, and I applaud the work of the Welsh Government in helping to secure this? On Saturday, I’m going to be going back to Penydarren Park where Merthyr Town Football Club are going to be displaying the Champions League cup there. I think that’s a great initiative—that it’s going to small clubs like Merthyr Town, and people and fans will have the opportunity to get there and have their photograph taken. I’m certainly hoping that I will, because it’s the closest that a Bristol City fan is ever going to get to the European cup, I can tell you that. But perhaps it’s more appropriate that I should raise that the European cup is coming to Merthyr on the thirtieth anniversary of the year in which they beat the mighty Atalanta in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1987. So, I think it’s very fitting that we’ve got another European trophy coming here this year.

But along with everything else that you’ve said, Cabinet Secretary, about the financial benefits of the final coming to Cardiff, I’m sure you’ll applaud the initiatives that we see clubs like Merthyr engaging in, in community activity and community based football. This provides a greater opportunity for the development of that kind of community football. So, I really wanted to follow on from the question that Rhun asked and something that you have already touched on, but whether you could expand more on how the Welsh Government can assist clubs like Merthyr to develop their community activities, particularly for girls, which the club has struggled to engage to any great extent.

Can I thank the Member for her contribution and say that I’m mightily impressed by the way that Merthyr Tydfil FC have rooted themselves so deeply in the community? It’s a place that unites people, it gives people a sense of belonging and it’s always a pleasure to visit that particular club. I know that Merthyr Tydfil FC are also very innovative and host walking football for senior citizens, and I think this is a great example of how football can be relevant to all people of all physical abilities.

I also think that football clubs have a crucial role in terms of being able to give people a sense of competence and confidence through the establishment of volunteering programmes, youth ambassador programmes and employability programmes. I know that there are good examples of this not just across Wales, but also further afield. Indeed, in Scotland, I visited a number of clubs in Glasgow that have become hubs for community physical activity and employability programmes. Often, community sport organisations can act as a magnet for those who are at risk of disengaging from formal education or training and ensure that they are provided with opportunities to acquire skills and experience that set them up properly and fully for the world of work, so I’m in no doubt of the great value of football clubs across the length and breadth of Wales in improving people’s lives, their well-being, their employment prospects and, of course, their levels of physical activity.

But I also think that the Member outlined a very relevant tale relating to the thirtieth anniversary and that would be, perhaps, something that should be relayed during this, the Year of Legends, because I think it’s a particularly important story that should be told, and I hope that the Member goes on retelling it in other venues.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

In terms of engagement, I know that the Minister for social services and sport is very keen on ensuring that more young women and girls participate in physical activity and sport. We’ve seen an increase in the number of people who’ve participated in sport in recent years across Wales, but there is still a challenge with maintaining activity levels once a girl reaches about the age of 13 or 14, and then we see a sudden drop-off. What Sport Wales has developed is a series of programmes aimed at ensuring that girls find forms of physical activity more appealing and that they are able to access different potentially informal forms of sport and physical activity at that crucial age, so that they don’t slip off the physical activity escalator. But I know, with the review that’s taking place currently into Sport Wales, this is a key question that’s being asked: what form of sport and physical activity is most attractive to those groups within our population who currently are not participating in physical activity enough? I think this will be an incredibly important policy area for the Welsh Government and all stakeholders in the months and years to come. We know that initiatives such as the Wales well-being bond, an extension of social prescribing, has great potential to improve the levels of fitness in our population, but to maximise the potential of them, we need to get buy-in from community sports organisations, so that they can act as our primary delivery partners.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement, and we in UKIP would like to congratulate all those involved in bringing this hugely prestigious event to Wales. The boost to the economy from the hundreds of thousands set to visit Cardiff will be substantial, and I would like to echo the Cabinet Secretary’s statement regarding the staging of one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar and its far-reaching effects in projecting the image of Wales as a distinct national identity worldwide, the effect of which cannot be overestimated. We can be sure that it will enhance Wales’ profile in a truly global context with a possible dramatic effect on our tourist industry over the ensuing years. It will, of course, also help to facilitate Welsh Government and the whole Assembly’s ambitions to sell the Wales brand across the globe, and the economic opportunities that that will produce. Can I take this point to commend the Welsh Government on its extensive preparation for this huge event, and we hope that the contingencies you’ve put in place will ensure that it will go off in the best possible way? Thank you.

Can I thank the Member for his contribution and welcome his support for the Champions League final? It is an event that I believe has support right across this Chamber, and one that I know many Members are keen to watch and may even participate in, because there will be thousands of opportunities to volunteer, and even if you’re not volunteering, just being in the city. If you represent a Cardiff constituency, to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors will be something that I know the Welsh Government and our partners would very much appreciate.

The economic benefits of this event are enormous. I’ve already outlined the immediate economic impact of £45 million for local economy, but we also estimate that, as of the middle of March, the advertising equivalent value of the event coming to Cardiff amounts to something in the region of £15 million just within Europe. On a global scale, I cannot imagine how much this event has generated in terms of advertising equivalent exposure, but let’s say that it’s far beyond any other single day’s event that we could hope to host in Wales. And I’m confident that, by the time the Champions League final arrives, the advertising equivalent benefit of this event will amount to way in excess of £20 million within Europe. We’ve also had a huge reach in terms of the #RoadToCardiff hashtag. We believe that, as of the start of March, that hashtag had reached more than 25 million users worldwide. This is something that money alone cannot buy. This can only take place—this can only be appreciated and realised in a positive sense—through the hosting of major events.

The first time I ever visited Cardiff was to see the Pope in, I think it was, 1980 or 1981. Even that event was not as big as what this event will be for Cardiff. This is monumentally big, and we look forward to hosting those two final teams, but we also look forward to hosting hundreds of thousands of visitors to Cardiff.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.