Cardiff CityCardiff City Football Club is the first club in Wales and only the sixth club to achieve this award and Cardiff City Stadium sits alongside Wembley Stadium, The Etihad Stadium (Manchester City FC), Pride Park (Derby County FC), The American Express Community Stadium (Brighton & Hove Albion FC) and The Emirates Stadium (Arsenal FC) as the only football grounds to have reached this standard.
The “Level Playing Field Centre of Excellence Award” is presented to sporting venues that demonstrate the highest access and inclusion standards in accommodating disabled spectators and visitors on match (or event) and non-match days. To qualify for the award, the club or venue undergoes a Level Playing Field professional access audit and must demonstrate that it meets all good practice standards, equality and access legislation and building regulations for accessible sports stadia.
Cardiff City FC has been innovative in making many excellent improvements and provisions for its disabled fans. These include several smart and low-cost groundbreaking solutions that have established good practice examples for existing stadiums that Level Playing Field now hopes other clubs will look to adopt.
Level Playing Field recognises Cardiff City FC as an excellent example of a club making continued improvements to its disabled fans’ facilities and services.
Ruth Hopkins, NRAC Auditor said,
“It was a return visit to Cardiff City for me, having first audited in 2016, and in that time, the club had carried out practically all our recommendations.
Since my last visit the club have installed a Changing Places, a Sensory Room, a Quiet Room, they now provide Hearing Loops and Audio Descriptive Commentary and they have dedicated disability stewards. The club works with disability groups in the community and closely with retired and ex-armed servicemen and women.
There is a genuine appetite within the club to work with their disabled fans and the Disabled Supporters Association is going from strength to strength with the club’s support”.
We are particularly impressed by the ‘can do’ culture throughout the club and based on the findings of the access audit and in recognition of the work that has been done and continues to be done, the Level Playing Field Board of Trustees are delighted to award the ‘Level Playing Field Centre of Excellence’.
Tony Taylor, Chair of Level Playing Field said,
“I am really pleased that we are able to recognise the progress that is made by clubs in this way. Congratulations to Cardiff City and to everyone involved”.
David McArdle, Head of EDI at the EFL said:
“The EFL congratulates Cardiff City for receiving Level Playing Field’s prestigious Centre of Excellence Award, which is recognition for the high access and inclusion standards that have been embedded across the Club.
“A key aim of our Together EDI strategy mission is for EFL Clubs to provide a best-in-class provision for inclusive and welcoming opportunities in football, and Cardiff City’s provision for disabled supporters is an outstanding representation of the progress that is being made across the EFL, offering good practice examples from which others will benefit.”
The award was made by Tony Taylor, Chair of Level Playing Field and Ruth Hopkins, Level Playing Field General Manager & Head of Access.