UEFA European Championship (Scotland) Bill: child rights and wellbeing impact assessment (CRWIA)

Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment Template

1. Brief Summary

Type of proposal:

• Bill

Name the proposal, and describe its overall aims and intended purpose.

UEFA European Championship (Scotland) Bill – (the Bill)

Background

The Union of European Football Association’s (UEFA’s) European Championship, also referred to as ‘EURO’, is a four yearly tournament. It is between UEFA’s national member football associations. It is one of the most prestigious international men’s football tournaments. Scotland will co-host EURO 2028 as part of a joint UK and Ireland Championship. The event is scheduled to take place in Summer 2028 and last around four weeks.

Scotland previously co-hosted EURO 2020, when Scotland was one of eleven host nations. EURO 2020 was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It took place from 11 June to 11 July 2021.

Some mega sporting events require certain protections in order for a country to host. For some, like the Olympics or Commonwealth Games, specific legislation needs to be put in place as a result.^[1] For EURO 2028, UEFA has requirements to protect its own and event sponsors’ commercial rights during the event^[2].

The Bill aims to meet these requirements so Scotland can host EURO 2028 matches in Glasgow. It has similar effect to the Act and Regulations put in place in Scotland for EURO 2020.^[3]

Aims and purpose

The purpose of the Bill is to protect UEFA’s commercial rights during EURO 2028.

The Bill puts in place additional protections in Scotland, including relevant criminal offences and enforcement powers, around:

• Unauthorised street trading
• Unauthorised advertising
• Unauthorised resale of tickets (ticket touting)

The additional protections would not be required once the event was completed. They would therefore end a reasonable period after event activity finished.

The measures in the Bill related to unauthorised street trading and advertising during EURO 2028 would only apply in event zones located in one or more location in Glasgow during event time. All matches will take place at Hampden Park Stadium. Exact locations of event zones are not yet confirmed but it is expected that there will be one around Hampden Park Stadium and another in part of Glasgow City Centre or nearby.

The measures in the Bill around ticket touting would apply Scotland-wide during event time.

Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments considerations for wider aspects of EURO 2028 will be prepared and published in due course.

Start date of proposal’s development: March 2024

Start date of CRWIA process: March 2024

2. With reference given to the requirements of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (Annex 1), which aspects of the proposal are relevant to/impact upon children’s rights?

No aspects of the Bill are deemed directly relevant to the UNCRC requirements.

The businesses affected by the Bill will be advertisers/advertising space owners and street traders/pedlars operating in designated event zones in Glasgow during EURO 2028. There could also potentially be some community impacts but we expect these to be minimal and mostly related to any enforcement of the Bill. Specific dates of operation for each of the event zones will be set out in regulations.

In Scotland, the rules for employing children are set by local authorities. Glasgow City Council’s street trader licence conditions states that the holder of a street trader's licence shall not be less than 18 years of age^[4].

UEFA’s terms and conditions for EURO 2024 advise that only a person above 18 years of age with legal capacity can enter into an agreement for the purchase of tickets to UEFA EURO 2024^[5]. We expect that there would be similar conditions for EURO 2028.

The EURO 2024 Stadium Rules^[6] also set out that:

• ticket holders under the age of 16 will only be permitted to enter the Stadium if accompanied by a responsible adult. The accompanying adult must also be in possession of a ticket.
• ticket holders who require the assistance of an accompanying person may only enter if that person is at least 16 years of age and holds a ticket.
• for the purposes of the terms and conditions, a responsible adult is a person over 18.

The Bill may have some minimal indirect impacts on children or young people under age 18. These are set out below.

• People under 18 are unable to purchase tickets for EURO 2028 themselves. However, the ticket touting measures in the Bill that this CRWIA covers will help ensure that anyone buying tickets for someone under 18 to attend EURO 2028 matches (with a responsible adult) can access these tickets on a fair and equitable basis at the prices offered by UEFA.
• As a result of the measures in the Bill people will only be able to buy merchandise sold by official traders in event zones. This could be seen as a potential negative impact as it limits their choice. However, there is also a balancing positive impact because of people being assured that they are buying official merchandise. In addition, outside of events zones the Bill does not place any additional restrictions on the merchandise sold by traders
• We expect that some people running businesses affected by the Bill will have children in their care and therefore by default rely on income from that business as a family. Affected street traders would be unable to trade in event zones during event times. If this resulted in loss of income, this could potentially affect the children in their care. However, EURO 2028 match days are in addition to the days on which these traders would usually expect to generate income in a year when the Championship was not taking place in Glasgow. Further, the Bill requires Glasgow City Council to work with all street traders affected by the Bill to identify alternative sites to trade during the times the restrictions are in place. The aim is to help minimise any impacts on street traders income.
• Police Scotland issues pedlar’s certificates in Scotland. People aged over 17 years of age can apply for a pedlar’s certificate. The certificate allows them to trade anywhere in the UK. To be affected by the Bill, pedlars aged 17 (from Scotland and elsewhere in the UK) would need to be trading in Glasgow during EURO 2028. The effect on them would be that they would be unable to trade in EURO 2028 event zones. The effect on pedlars aged 17 would be the same as all other pedlars. Pedlars could still trade anywhere in Glasgow – outside of event zones – in line with the conditions of their licence. On 3 February 2025, Police Scotland confirmed that no individuals aged 17 years of age hold a pedlar’s certificate. However, this is subject to change between now and the Championship taking place.

Overall, these indirect impacts are minimal for children and young people under age 18. As set out above there are no impacts on their rights. It should also be noted that impacts are only for EURO 2028 and that street trading and advertising restrictions will only apply for a limited time in specific areas of Glasgow. The actual dates are still to be confirmed but will be close to and during EURO 2028. The event is expected to last around four weeks.

3. Please provide a summary of the evidence gathered which will be used to inform your decision-making and the content of the proposal

Public consultation

On 2 May 2024 the Scottish Government launched a 12-week public consultation to seek views on the commercial rights protection for EURO 2028. This included:

• A public consultation paper^[7] and Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA)^[8] published on the Scottish Government website supported by a CitizenSpace survey^[9].
• Targeted engagement during the consultation period with those most likely to be affected and groups representing these interests.

The consultation closed on 26 July 2024.

Broadly, the consultation survey – which was delivered on-line via Citizen Space – set out a series of questions related to street trading, advertising and ticketing. None of these questions specifically focused on people under 18. The public consultation asked the question “In what ways, if any, do you think the proposed legislation would affect groups of people differently than others?” and there were no responses related to people under 18.

Additionally, four consultation events were held to engage with key stakeholders.

In the Respondent Information Form we did ask the age of respondents to the consultation to identify children and young people under 18 to help inform this CRWIA .

There were no responses to the consultation from people under 18.

A total of 26 responses to the consultation were received, with 23 submitted via an online platform and three via email. Additionally, four consultation events were held to engage with key stakeholders. None of these responses highlighted aspects specifically related to people aged under 18.

The two in-person engagement events held in Glasgow were attended by a total of 6 people, and the two online engagement events were attended by 12 people.

We also contacted YouthLink Scotland, the Scottish Youth Parliament and Children’s Parliament to highlight the public consultation and invite participation from these partners and the children and young people under 18 they represent. This was done as part of our wider communication plan for the consultation.

We did not receive a response to the public consultation from any organisations representing children and young people under 18. This was expected given the very focused technical nature of the proposed legislation which largely focuses on business related activities.

We distributed leaflets to street traders at Hampden Stadium on 7 June 2024, to make them aware of the consultation and listen to their views. At that time, some traders expressed annoyance at potentially being moved from their usual trading sites for EURO 2028, highlighting that they had been trading in the vicinity of Hampden Stadium for a long time. Glasgow City Council also wrote to all street traders potentially impacted by the proposed legislation to invite participation in the public consultation.

Our assessment is that further targeted consultation with children and young people under 18 – and/or the bodies representing them – is not necessary due to the minimal impacts expected.

The Scottish Government published the analysis of responses to the public consultation^[10] and also the Scottish Government’s response^[11] to the analysis on 11 October 2024.

4. Further to the evidence described at ‘3’ have you identified any 'gaps' in evidence which may prevent determination of impact? If yes, please provide an explanation of how they will be addressed

No significant gaps in evidence have been identified.

All the evidence we hold, as set out at Section 1-3, indicates that the proposed legislation does not appear to be relevant to children and young people under 18 and their rights.

5. Analysis of Evidence

All the evidence we hold, as set out at Section 1-3, indicates that the proposed legislation does not appear to be relevant to children and young people under 18 and their rights.

6. What changes (if any) have been made to the proposal as a result of this assessment?

No changes have been made to the Bill as a result of this assessment. This is because the assessment found that there are minimal indirect impacts on children and young people under 18, no impacts on their rights and the overall impact on them is neutral. No aspects of the Bill are deemed directly relevant to the UNCRC requirements.

This assessment did help us identify a need to ask if respondents to the EURO 2028 – commercial rights protection – public consultation were under age 18. In the Respondent Information Form we asked the age of respondents to the consultation to help identify children and young people under 18 to inform this CRWIA. There were no responses to the consultation from people under 18 or from bodies representing them.