A high court battle is raging between British bridge players and the Sport England over whether the card game bridge, popular with world figures and celebrities from Winston Churchill to Omar Sharif, should be a sport.
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Ben Jaffey for the Department said it was common ground that bridge was a game of the mind, but the EBU contended that a “sport” ought to include “mind sports” which – like physical sports – should be recognised by the sports councils.
The bridge union has already lost a challenge to the national tax service to give bridge the same tax benefits as officially-recognized sports such as tennis and rowing.
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.
But Heather Dhondy, a member of England’s women’s bridge team, said the card game “doesn’t involve a great deal of physical activity”, but players still had to be physically fit.
The funding body said a sport is defined as an “activity aimed at improving physical fitness and well-being, forming social relations and gaining results in competition”. If bridge is decided to be a sport then it could be granted a certain amount of public funds for tournaments and to prop up bridge bodies.
The judge said bringing chess into the debate would “generate more heat than light” in terms of the legal issue he had to resolve, which was whether Sport England had unlawfully restricted its own powers by adopting too narrow a definition.
They are not now part of the Olympic Games programme, but organisers of the 2020 summer Games in Tokyo have invited both chess and bridge to apply for inclusion, with the decision to be made next year.
“There are physical activities, such as running on a treadmill, which are physical recreations but not sports”.
He said that bridge required “undoubted levels of mental skill” and had “known health benefits”.
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The EBU says the card game is as much a sport as snooker or darts, while others believe it is more like “reading a book”.
