Bridge players who wanted the popular card game recognised as a sport have lost their High Court battle.
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The case, heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, pitted the English Bridge Union against Sport England, the country’s umbrella athletic organization.
Bridge, he said, had “many of the attributions of playing sport …”
His decision affects participants in many sports other than bridge.
But the judge said Sport England’s current policy defined sport as involving “physical activity” and its move to reject reclassification of bridge was right.
Mashable contributed reporting to this story.
In court, the EBU had tried to argue that the definition of “sport” in the 1966 Royal Charter did not necessarily specify physical activity.
Mr Millett said it was “only a matter of time” before Sport England would be forced to recognise bridge.
The English Bridge Union had argued the game had health benefits for the mind. He said he had focused on the legal arguments and avoided the “broad, somewhat philosophical question” as to whether or not bridge “is a sport”.
He said a few worldwide organisations had recognised bridge as a sport, but he said it was “difficult to identify” anything which might justify giving a different meaning to “physical training and recreation” than the meaning intended in the 1937 Physical Training and Recreation Act.
The EBU said that the level of physical activity involved in playing bridge was not that dissimilar to that required to playing darts.
“The importance of supporting physical training and physical recreation remains a significant element of public policy”, Dove wrote in his ruling, though he added: “That is not to say that there may not be good reason for public policy to promote mental activity and agility”.
The union said it was “very disappointed” and was reviewing its options for its next course of action.
Sport England’s director of sport, Phil Smith, said its role was “to help the nation to be more physically active”. The claim was all about money and whether Sport England’s decision not to classify bridge as a sport, and thereby to deprive bridge from funding, was properly reached.
IT is thought 300,000 people in England play bridge on a regular basis – 55,000 of whom are members of the English Bridge Union.
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