FUNDING SYSTEM UP FOR RETHINK

The funding system which has pushed the UK’s Olympic and Paralympic performances to unprecedented heights but left basketball frozen out could be radically re-shaped.

An official consultation has been launched that will give the British public the chance to say if they want a diminishing pot of public money invested across a wide range of sports rather than exclusively targeting medals at the expense of all else.

The chair of UK Sport, Dame Katherine Grainger, has revealed the feedback process to be undertaken later this year which will seek views on the no-compromise philosophy which has ignited the ascent from a single gold at the Atlanta Olympic Games of 1996 into the once-unthinkable heights of second place in the medals table at Rio 2016.

However the elitist policy has received increasing criticism for cultivating a divide between the haves and have-nothings with sports like basketball and badminton, with large participation numbers, placed in financial peril when their allocation of National Lottery-generated backing was withdrawn after it was assessed that they could not deliver high-level success.

Now those outside the bubble are to get their say via an online survey and through focus groups set to be held around the country, before UK Sport’s board deliberates the findings ahead of launching their Paris 2024 plans in the autumn of 2019.

And Grainger, the five-time Olympic rowing medallist who took charge of the quango last year, insists she will act if the tide of opinion demands a change of course.

“This is a really open-minded time,” said the Scot. “People genuinely want to go ‘how do you define success?’ Is it different from what we’ve done before or is it the same as we’ve always had? We want to know from the public. If it is different, then things need to shift. And then we have to talk to the government so it’s in line with their policy. But it is timely to have that debate.”

The agency has shown a small but unprecedented degree of flexibility during Grainger’s brief reign with a British Basketball getting a £500,000 pot via the UK government and a £2.5m pool of monies provided directly to a small group of competitors in badminton and archery, even though their governing bodies are no longer supported.

That could be a model worth extending, Grainger hinted. “Without wrecking or threatening everything we’ve all signed up to, is there some flex where money could make a difference?” she added. “We think results do inspire people – and we’ll see it here. But within that, is there any way to have more money in the system that is about building sports and supporting athletes with potential?”

Questions to be considered include:

• How sports and athletes are prioritised for future investment, whether that is athletes
• sports with the greatest public access to participation or those with the widest social reach and impactHow to ensure there continues to be parity given to Paralympic as well as Olympic sport; summer and winter
• How best to utilise funded athletes as community and national role models; how to balance support for lesser-funded minority or developing sports with funding for those with larger commercial potential
• Whether to target other sports beyond the Olympic and Paralympic stable.

Participants will be asked to make the tough choices and consider the ultimate consequences of these choices with what in reality will always be a limited pot of public funding for high performance sport in the UK.

The consultation will open to the public on 4 June, with an online survey available for anyone to complete. This will stay open until 19 August.

 

 

Photo: Mansoor Ahmed