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.