“First day at school” as Sir Phillip Davies begins his role as GBGB Non Executive Chairman

“First day at school” as Sir Phillip Davies begins his role as GBGB Non Executive Chairman

Star Sports Group Chairman Sir Phillip Davies was speaking at Star Pelaw last night ahead of starting new role as GBGB Non Executive Chairman today

One of the many things Davies will have to deal with is the political situation in Wales with the potential banning of greyhound racing at Valley greyhound track, and it’s a situation that Davies will find near the top of his to do list

“It will be very much close to the top of the agenda” he said

“Greyhound racing is a fantastic sport, but in many respects, it’s been to inward facing. Everyone involved in it knows how great a sport it is, but it’s probably not been as good as it could have been at telling the world how good a sport it is, and one of my jobs, certainly politically, will be to make sure politicians understand that greyhound racing is not only is a fantastic sport, really important to the local community, but has a fantastic welfare record."

“We all know that, we just need to sell that message a bit better to people in politics, because if people actually saw how much welfare played a part in greyhound racing and what’s happening in Wales, which is an absolute disgrace, it almost certainly wouldn’t be happening”

Davies continued “It’s my first day tomorrow, so I’ve got an awful lot to learn. Obviously, the other thing that greyhound racing is it needs more money into the sport and we need to get more money from bookmakers to be perfectly honest. So one of my tasks that I’ll be trying to do, and it’s not going to be easy, because the government are trying to get more and more money out of them as well, but one of my tasks will be try and tell bookmakers that they need to pay more for what is such a fantastic product for their customers”

“At Star Sports, we are absolutely committed to greyhound racing. Ben Keith, as everyone knows, is absolutely passionate about the sport, and puts a huge amount of money into the sport as well”

“We were prepared to pay our fair share at Star Sports for greyhound racing and it’s absolutely right that other bookmakers do the same. It’s a great product, the customers love it, and we just need to make sure that we have the money that we need, in order to make sure we can keep raising those welfare standards to make sure that politicians leave us alone”