hello and welcome. nelson mandela once said that sport has the power to change the world, do unite people, to create hope where once there was only despair. how far is that true of sport today? with cause for boycotts, reports of abuse and a relentless drive to make profits, in this week's programme, we look at the power of sport. well, to bring you this edition of global questions are two panellists and our questioners join us via video link from all corners of the world.

let me tell you who is in the hot seat this week giving the answers. tessa sanderson has competed in the olympics six times, winning gold in athletics in 1984. she is the first black female athlete to win a gold for britain. and, since her retirement, she has been an advocate for greater inclusion in sport. and paul hayward is the british sports commentator, he has won the sports journalist of the year award five times. paul has reported on some of the world's greatest sporting events. welcome to you both, and to questioners, to you, whether you're watching or listening to this programme, remember, you can also join this question. lots of fantastic questions coming our way, so let's get down to the first one, fromjimmy in belgium. your question, please? thank you, they never badawi. the european super league

was recently launched - and defended by the power of fans. a triumph of people against profit. how can we make football and other i sport in general rooted in cities i and communities and societies, where they are born in giving i supporters and fans with power, as opposed to having elites - hijack the sport for profit? tessa sanderson, kick us off on that one. the power of the fan clearly did it this time! yes, thank you for that. well, i think it was a really bad decision that was made in that boardroom to take football more or less away from what i call the home of football. i think really on something like that there should have been... people like the minister of sport, you know, the football association, football fans association themselves, brought boardroom to help make that decision to say that that

big change was going to happen because as far as i am concerned, football fans and the players make football how it is global today. i think the decision wasn't taken probably very lightly and although the fans don't own shares, although maybe some of them do, in some of these football clubs, i think it was totally a wrong decision to make, and i do think that some of the other governing bodies, like i said, should have been brought to the table and no decision of that should have been made without an official stamp from one of the governing bodies or, you know, the government itself as people have pointed out. because the fans, and also the players, are what make football global! at as far as i can see, they showed no respect to them whatsoever. all right. paul, what is your answer tojimmy? well, it is a very good question and the clue is in the name. fc stands for football club, it doesn't stand for football commodity or football corporation.

the one positive to come out of this attempt, this sort of a coup d'etat, really, this attempted heist by the richest clubs in europe, is that it has mobilised fans' sentiment, fans' resistance against this carve—up at the very top of football, and people are coming to look again at the fact that these clubs are meant to be rooted in community and tradition and history and supporters, even of the big clubs who are set to gain by this, who have given this vip pass into this platinum club of european super league, they are leading the line against this kind of trend and they are the ones fighting back, so i think fans have got a clear idea now of the voice they want to have in this decision—making process and they are not prepared to be led around by billionaires and oligarchs and speculators and nation states. all right, very quickly, paul, is it relevant for other sports

that it is notjust the relentless pursuit of profits that governs sports? or is it just special to football? no, i think it is relevant to other sports, but it is most extreme in football. what we have seen is the commercialisation and commodification of world sport. it is a huge multi—billion pound global business and there are consequences from that. sport gets taken away from the people, taken away from its communities, and fans in lots of sports are starting to wake up to this and starting to mobilise. 0k, jimmy, are you reassured by what you have heard tessa and paul say? yes, i concur and i agree with them in total. - i think that power and sport- in general arises from the people and the people will stand up for what they believe in. - it is a culture, religion and a way of life and it belongs to them, i the people, and it is a very- powerful message sent and i hope, not only in football, - but other facets of lives will learn from this.

all right. a group of people can make history. one happy sport fan there in belgium. jimmy, thanks so much indeed. let's go to the capital of zimbabwe and your question? abuse is a major concern - in the sporting industry and in view of the global changes in sport, how are sport organisations i responding to effectively address abuse? - that is quite a big question, isn't it? abuse in sport, because we have heard about abuse of athletes by their trainers and the terrible regimes they have to endure, abuse of systems by sportspeople, the cheating, doping, the online abuse. so where are you going to put your focus? it is a very broad question and we have to define what we mean by abuse. we are certainly facing many forms of it. i think if you take abuse in the form of bullying and sexual abuse within sport,

i think there is a realisation that safeguarding has to improve. i think some of these governing bodies are concerned by the threat of litigation from athletes who have suffered, and of course in the field of racial abuse and other forms of abuse in social media, we are seeing athletes particularly stand up and say they are not prepared to take it, with athletes taking the knee and boycotting social media and so on, so again, the culture of abuse, i think, was really... you know, not managed very well 15—20— 30 years ago, but it is now in a very sharp spotlight and people are starting to react to it and governing bodies now are going to have to take greater responsibility and social media companies as well to make sure that this is dealt with. tessa, where is your focus on this? what is the spotlight? my line is on the basis of racial abuse because, you know, i wasn't born here, but i came here, i lived here, i have competed for my country

and i have been really happy doing that, and when i have seen some of the things that have been happening out there, especially also on the football pitches and also even with some of the community sports, people are being called names and abused for the colour of their skin. that is very hurtful. so i agree with paul in the sense that from a social media point of view, what should be done, really, is that social media take tougher action to those people that i call hidden bullies who are going out there with their bullying tactics and just throwing their abuse on there to the people that are out there doing a good job, competing happily for their country. i mean, with social media, that is one of the most things that has been bad because there is no registration, anonymous accounts on social media. that should never, ever happen because it is opening to these bullies.

i do think one of the good things that has happened over the last couple of weeks was the blackout, because we had a lot of the club saying, no, even including myself and some of my friends saying, no, we are not going to use you, just to show that we are against this. we don't like what is happening. tessa, can i ask you, obviously social media wasn't around when you were an athlete, but did you experience racial abuse as a sportswoman yourself? i didn't have any sort of really bad racial abuse, but i remember when i came from the olympic games and i got sent this letter from, again, from an anonymous person, saying that, you won your gold medal and you may be living in great britain, but you didn't actually win it for us. you are from the caribbean, remember you are a black person and always will be. and that sort of shocked me. i could not believe that that came to me because i was feeling so victorious, so good and so happy.

but, you know, it is still there and it is still here. do you think that sport has the power to put this kind of abuse on the agenda right from the time 1968, tommie smith, the american athlete who raised the black power salute when he received... if i can butt in there. saying what they are saying, doing what they are doing and it should not be. yes, from an athletics perspective, if we were having this in athletics now, i think because of the way it is, we would probably be making the and also i was so proud of the kneeling and the blackout because that's in blm movement and the fist and the kneeling and the blackout because that's in such don't chastise us by the colour of our skin because we are here and we are

working across the world. we are working and enjoying competing for our country. let's go back to the questioner. are you happy with what you just heard? yes, thank you. l i think like what the panellists l have indicated, technology should . really be harnessed to effectively. address, advocate and get awareness in all forms of abuse, - so that at the end of the day, we create an environment - in which anyone who is participating in the sport should be able to participate freely, - irrespective of their race, - religion or their social background. paul, do you want a quick response on what you have heard tessa say about that particular issue? yes, i am just heartened, really, on behalf of sport, that sport has led this fight back because i can remember a culture where people in sport were encouraged to keep quiet, they were encouraged not to, in quotes, "politicise sport," but i cast my mind back to colin kaepernick in the nfl taking a knee and establishing that as a symbolic form of resistance. this was obviously after tommie smith in mexico and so on.

and this caught on, and sport began to understand that it had this profile and this power and popularity, and that it could use it in a positive way, so i think sport really is at the forefront, in many ways, of drawing attention to these issues. great, fantastic, thanks very much indeed. we will go to perth in australia to karen hennessy. karen, what is your question? hi. on behalf of the women in sport. in western australia and australia, i would like to ask this question. if you can't see it, you can't be it. . the lack of coverage of women's sport in the media has _ a trickle—down effect on young girls playing sports. _ putting women's sport front and centre of newspapers, i ltelevision and billboards shows| young girls what they can aspire to be and that the sport - that they love they can play at an elite level, and there are pathways to get there. | we all need our superstars to look up to, like tessa. i how do we increase the media coverage of women's sports? i

ok, superstar sportswoman, tessa, your answer? that is such a good question, thank you for that. i think we are getting a little bit more coverage and it is getting better, but it is just not enough, as you are saying. we need to, ifeel, broadcast and show women's sport a lot more on tv, in the newspapers, whatever we do. so that it becomes a balance. i love football, but i don't want to be dominated with football all the time. i think on the way forward, personally i feel there should be more in editorial positions, where they make decisions when to show or not to show, and also in the boardroom there should be a lot more leadership of women, making those decisions and deciding whether that game or that game or that sport should be shown for women because they have got so much better over the years. for instance, you look

at the chelsea women's football manager now. she is doing fantastic! she might become the first female to even manage a men's team and that will be great. if a woman can do thejob, then offer them the opportunity. but i do think that we need the leadership to be given the opportunity in the boardroom, where they are making this decision. i think that even in television, women should be sitting there and making these decisions with the people to show a lot more women's sport, if they are doing very well. so it is not balanced at the moment, but i think we are getting there. right, paul, let mejust interject with this quote from venus williams, tennis superstar in america. "i firmly believe that sport mirrors life and life mirror sport. "the lack of equality and equal opportunities in tennis is a symptom "of the obstacles women face around the world." so sport is not very different, it is part of society, isn't it? women get a raw deal in lots of things, including in sport?

yes, certainly it is a societal issue as much as a sporting one. i think that the two biggest issues in world sport at the moment are women's sport, the growth of women's sport and climate change, how sport is going to adapt to climate change. now, to grow women's sport, you need tv coverage, tv deals, media attention, sponsors, participants and men to stop thinking of it as somehow a lesser version of men's sport, a second grade, if you like. this goes to the heart of fairness and equality and equal treatment, and it is staggering to think that half the world's population have had obstacles placed in their path, obstacles to participation, obstacles to recognition. and i do feel that, certainly in the uk, those obstacles are starting to come down. i think there is a greater awareness among companies, for example, that women's sport is a growth area

and this is something they should be involved with and supporting. it was very good to hear this week, to have a picture of chelsea winning the women's super league on a lot of newspaper front pages. that was just a very small sign that things might be moving. ok, karen, do you like what you hear? 0h! they are great answers! and tessa, i love your passion - and your experience, it is amazing, and i think at the moment - there are only 4% globally media coverage of women in sport, so it can only get better, - but having people in the boardrooms, having people, editors, _ in the media, paul, like yourself | driving it and pushing it forward| can only make things better. all right, good, the only way is up. thank you very much indeed, karen. let's go to cairo in egypt now and marianne. what do you want to ask tessa and paul? thank you, zeinab. i think, tessa and paul, my question to you is l if we should put sport

on the international. political agenda? paul, again, a very open question there. yeah, i think it is already there. i think it was always there, i mean one of the great myths is that sport and politics can be separated. it may suit governing bodies to make that case, but if you think back to hitler's olympics in the 1930s, the boycott of the moscow games, the olympic games, the mexico fist salute and so on, taking the knee now. sport and politics are indivisible and while you wouldn't want necessarily for sport to become purely political theatre, at the same time i think it has such an important place in society and such a role to play that i am glad to see this kind of conspiracy of silence lifting and i'm glad to see athletes realising that they don't have to be silenced by governing bodies and sponsors and so on, and that they can have a voice.

we are seeing sport influence huge numbers of people, setting an example. you know, premier league footballers are just an example of that, where individuals have effected change or started to. but paul, there is a different dimension to this, obviously, the soft power of sport for a country that for example is hosting the olympics, like tokyo injapan, the summer games, but we are hearing calls for a boycott of the winter olympics in china in 2022 because of their alleged treatment of the uighur muslims. we saw the boycotts against apartheid in south africa, so that kind of role for sport on the international political agenda, is that something you would support? i would, although i wouldn't pretend that these issues are simple because you could find a reason for boycotting events in most countries. i mean, if you look at the qatar world cup in 2022, there are all sorts of reasons for the world cup not to be in qatar and that is an immensely complicated subject.

if you narrowed it down to ideal democratic countries, sport wouldn't move very far around the globe and the argument has always been that sport should go to countries that are undemocratic and try to change them. i am sceptical about that idea myself, but i'm not pretending it is a simple equation. how do you see this question? what is your answer, tessa? i think that sport really and truly should be on the international agenda. i think it should be way up there and it should be kept there. i think it offers so many opportunities and challenges to people, good challenges, positive ways forward, it offersjobs, opportunities and one of the things that i think — and i agree it should be on the agenda — is that for some of these smaller countries who may never get the opportunity to see such a wide and big array of sport, people like the ioc is doing a great job bringing the olympics to countries and smaller countries who benefit from those things.

also sport is such a good way of looking at health and all these sort of things, so i think on the global agenda it is right to be there and should stay there. all right. what is your opinion on your own question? do you agree with tessa and paul? i agree, but i also think there is a different - or an additional dynamic to sport that is often overlooked, - so the soft power part of it, like you were saying. - so really using sport _ as an effective tool for developers. it is a very low cost, - very effective tool and i feel like again highlighting the power. of sport, not just from an athlete's perspective and a professional perspective, but also - from a development perspective, is really important. _ that leads onto our next question from tokyo, japan, the host of the olympics nation. what is your question, mia? thank you for having me.

i believe in the power of sport - and that it is most powerful when it has reached to people in the most need. - what would you think is the most ideal way of harnessing _ sport for social change? gosh! we are laying a lot of responsibilities at the door of sport, aren't we? tessa, the power of sport for social change? i think the government in really every country should invest in sport, invest in sport and put it really up high on the agenda because, as i said, it gives you so many things, it can be gratifying, satisfying, it is an educational pathway, it is a way to healthy living. we have so many things that is going on about obesity and sport can help that in a big way. you know, mental health. what is happening now... all this, just to be a bit more active. you know, sport can help that in a country, so i do think government have a priority to make sure that sport is harnessed in that way for the community, more funding going on,

more investment and other big organisations. right. paul? yes, again, sport is essentially a democratic thing. it belongs to everybody, it is very often appropriated by elites and corporations and billionaires, but the beauty of sport is that it is accessible to all. now, the rich countries, the elite countries are not very good at wealth redistribution, so in an ideal world, money would be redistributed from the rich nations to the developing nations, so that participation in sport could increase for all sorts of health and physical well— being reasons. that tends not to happen, but the bigger countries, the countries who profit from sport, do need to do more to encourage sporting development around the world and i think national governments, as tessa said, need to look at sport and see it as a positive tool for social change and invest in it, notjust at the top, but in the grass roots,

where most people experience it. ok, mia, clearly the social change question can happen at the individual level, the community level and also the national level and internationally, so what is your view on this question? thank you for the - encouraging comments. |actually, that has been the missionl of my organisation, sport for smile, and we always try to reach out for people who don't - have access to sport, i even though the process and innovation is way harder. so i am inspired - by this conversation. thank you very much for that. ourfinal question is from bangalore in india. thank you for having me today. my question for the panellists is - what does the future hold for sport? right. that is an easy one! let's go to you first, tessa? go on, what is the future? for me, i think the future is still bright in sport, very much so, because it offers

so many things. without sport i probably would never have been where i am now. i know there are things one has to look at to say, we need to make this better, especially women in sport, and it would send a message if they do make the right decision about women moving forward in sport, that there is a future. but i do think sport offers so many things. it is the best entertainment out there! so the thing for me is it will always be here, it will always be here to stay, and we just cannot let that loose. thanks very much. paul? well, i think the biggest changes will be in the development of women's sport, i think the revolution in the tv industry and the way we watch sport will continue, streaming and so on. i think there will be a push on the environmental front, more sustainable global

sport, less air travel and all sorts of ways to make sport play its part of the fight against climate change... there will be a huge audit in world sport after covid to see what is left, what is damaged and recoverable and so on. but in the end, as tessa said, it is the greatest form of live unscripted drama and it will continue to fire our imaginations, we will continue to feel part of special games and events and performances and it will always be a great testing ground for human talents and character. tessa sanderson, olympic gold winner, it has been wonderful having you with us, and also, paul hayward, and questioners, thank you. and also to you, wherever you're watching or listening to the programme, that is all from this edition of global questions: the power of sport. we have heard lots of interesting things and if you want to be part of our programme in the future you can submit a question here. until the next time, from me and the rest of the global questions team, goodbye!

hello. there will be a few pleasant sunny spells at times today. it feels reasonably warm if you are in the sunshine, but we are dodging the downpours yet again across many areas. even where you started with some sunshine today, the cloud is going to build, you may find a heavy and thundery shower heading your way. there could be some gusty winds around, the possibility of some hail. this low pressure tracks across wales and england as we go through the day, and this is where we are going to find not a huge amount of sunshine, even around the showers into this afternoon. the bright colours on the forecast indicate where some of them will be quite heavy. slow moving as well, with, for the most part, light winds, so they will hang around for a period of time. northern ireland and the central

belt, northern scotland, yes, some sunshine but the chance of a heavy shower. not everybody will. fairly light winds, but quite gusty around the showers. the strongest winds are the english channel, channel islands, gusting to 40mph. temperatures of 12—15 for the most part. the north sea coast, ten or ii celsius. showers will be around this evening and well into the night across the eastern side of england, before eventually fading as that area of low pressure moves away. it is becoming mainly dry after midnight. a lot of cloud towards the east. low cloud, hill fog, but clearer skies in the west. chilliest overnight in northern ireland and down into low single figures. low pressure is on the way out. still close enough to give us some showers during monday. as that weather front drifts eastwards, we will start with quite a bit of dry weather. a mixture of cloud and some sunny spells. the showers will be heavy and thundery migrating eastwards during the day, leaving many western

areas dry and sunny by the end of the afternoon. temperatures are no higher through the week ahead. on tuesday, some patchy rain cloud into northern scotland, drifting a little further south with showers developing elsewhere. heaviest will be across the southern half of england and into wales on tuesday. as the week goes on, wednesday does look to be a little quieter. more places staying dry and seeing the potential of very wet and windy weather coming our way on thursday and friday.

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indoors with people. it's still safer to eat outdoors rather than in