Bridge enthusiasts began a court challenge in London on Tuesday against a decision by funding body Sport England to exclude the card game from a list of recognized sports that includes "darts, model aircraft flying, hot air ballooning and angling," according to Estelle Shirbon of REUTERS. At "stake for bridge lovers is a potential source of funding as well as new opportunities to play," while for Sport England the risk if bridge succeeds "is that the likes of chess, Scrabble and other 'mind sports' will also want recognition and money." The English Bridge Union, which has 55,000 members, argues that Sport England, a public body that aims to help get the nation fitter, "used too narrow a definition of sport" when it rejected an application in '14 to recognize bridge as one. That definition, taken from a Council of Europe charter on sport, identifies "physical activity" as its central element. Lawyer Richard Clayton, representing the EBU, said, "Physical activity is a very uncertain yardstick." He drew a comparison between bridge and darts. 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." The High Court is "not being asked to rule on whether or not bridge is a sport," but merely on whether Sport England's decision to reject the application to recognize bridge was lawful (REUTERS, 9/22).
