Harry pulls no punches at community sports project launch
The Duke of Sussex met boxers Anthony Joshua and Nicola Adam at the launch of Made By Sport, and said the initiative will ‘change lives’.
The Duke of Sussex has joined the launch of an ambitious project to raise £40 million to boost the work of charities delivering sport in disadvantaged communities.
Speaking later to an audience of charity partners and young people, Harry said the country could spend hundreds of millions of pounds on the problems caused by a lack of sport in young people’s lives or “you rip up all those cheques and start at the beginning to prevent it from happening in the first place”.
He also told his audience, at the Black Prince Trust’s Community Sports Hub: “We have a responsibility in this campaign to ensure places that are being shut down are not being shut down and that people from all walks of society and every corner of this country are actually given the opportunity to shine, to flourish.
When Harry first walked into the boxing gym, he watched teenagers sparring under the watchful eye of Joshua, who suffered a shock defeat to Andy Ruiz Jr in New York earlier this month, losing his IBF, WBO and WBA world titles.
The duke, who has boxed in the past, said the sport allowed participants to “get out the anger and aggression which everybody has”, and Joshua added: “All you need is a T-shirt and some gloves.”
After chatting to the duke, she said: “Boxing’s done the world for me – I’ve travelled everywhere, I’ve received an MBE and an OBE, I’ve become a double Olympic champion, it’s changed my life.
“Just because I’ve had the opportunity to be able to participate, that’s why I’m quite excited by Made By Sport, it’s a really nice charity, it’s going to do the world of good.”
He described how he was expelled from school at 15 and a year later was in Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution but had discovered boxing by the time he was 18 – a life-changing moment.
He added: “I’m not a world champion, or had a hundred bouts or become a professional, but what boxing has done for me has helped me through the past 12 years – without boxing I’d be a very different character to what I am today.”
Sport England has confirmed it will work with the new campaign, which will also tie up with the Great North Run in 2020.
