The Pho3nix Foundation brings its Sport With Purpose Charity Gala to The Peninsula London on Friday 20 November 2026, hosted by James Corden.
The Pho3nix Foundation was set up by the Kulczyk family, the Polish industrial dynasty whose own charitable foundation was established in 2013, to get children into sport and keep them there. Its Pho3nix Kids programmes had reached more than half a million participants across eight countries within four years, and the argument behind them is a public health one rather than a sporting one: a child who plays sport before thirteen is far more likely to be active at forty. It funds coaching, equipment and events in places where none of that exists.
That explains the guest list, which is the part of this evening that reads differently from most sporting fundraisers. The athletes who turn up are not there as decoration; they are there because the foundation puts them in front of children, and several of them run their own programmes with it.
The 2026 gala is at The Peninsula London on Friday 20 November. James Corden hosts, with Scottie Pippen, Sir Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Chris Froome, Dame Laura Kenny, Lawrence Dallaglio, Alastair Cook, Rebecca Adlington and both Brownlee brothers on the published list. It shares its date with the Royal Variety Performance, which is worth knowing when that Friday is planned. Proceeds go to the foundation’s programmes putting children into sport rather than to a general fund.