Guernsey Sports Commission announces new Carey Olsen sponsorship to support young sportspeople

Half of the sponsorship money will go towards targeting support for aspiring young sportspeople on National Governing Body, Olympic or professional club pathways. The other half of the Carey Olsen sponsorship will go towards the Commission’s highly regarded Sports Voucher scheme. This scheme aims to ensure that every child and young person has equal access to opportunities to participate, compete and excel in sport regardless of their financial situation.

Competing at county level and above inevitably requires off-island travel and young people on these performance pathways are required to travel significantly more than their peers who may be representing Guernsey alone. The Commission will aim to identify a small number of young performers and work with them and their coaches to conduct a needs analysis to help focus on the support that will make the biggest difference to their performance and development going forward.

Managing partner of Carey Olsen Guernsey, Tom Carey, said: "We are committed to supporting local community initiatives wherever possible and are really impressed with the work of the Guernsey Sports Commission. We are pleased to partner with them to help secure the fantastic work they do for Guernsey in encouraging and developing sporting endeavour in schools and amongst our best athletes."

Director of operations at the Commission, Graham Chester, said: "Sourcing private funding is critical to most areas of our work and securing the support of Carey Olsen means we can expand our work with promising young sportspeople and also provide additional funding for our successful Sports Voucher scheme.

Both these areas fall within the Government’s agreed Sports Strategy Active 8 for which we have limited States of Guernsey funding. Being able to partner with Carey Olsen means we can progress these workstreams and deliver more support to more children and young people so they can reap the benefits of participating in sport."

Director of communications at the Commission, Nicky Will, who manages the Sports Voucher scheme, said: "Last year we issued over 140 vouchers to pay for club subs or memberships for sports including football, boxing, rugby, netball, basketball, gymnastics, cricket and squash. Children are eligible for vouchers if the family is claiming uniform allowance or is on income support or has been referred by another agency, and so we are able to reduce some of the barriers that stop children being able to take part in sport."