UK Edition
Funding row intensifies as Ed Warner suggests abolishing UK Sport
The biggest ever revolt against Great Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic medal-winning formula intensified on Thursday night after the Government was urged to consider abolishing UK Sport.
Ed Warner, who this month stepped down as chairman of UK Athletics after 10 years, joined the heads of 11 other national governing bodies (NGBs) in calling for an “urgent, thorough review” of the elite funding agency’s ‘no compromise’ policy by its new chair, Dame Katherine Grainger.
Warner went further, however, by suggesting money could be found to bankroll sports cut adrift by UK Sport by disbanding it altogether and transferring its functions to the British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association.
“If you put everything on the table, why don’t you tear up UK Sport and embrace the BOA and the BPA as the deliverers of the high-performance funding?” he asked.
“Why would it need to exist if you had a BPA and a BOA that were structured in the right way? You might be able to get rid of loads of overheads.”
What would be the most radical overhaul of the funding of British sport for more than two decades – years which have seen the country propelled from 36th place in the Olympic medal table in 1996 to second last summer – would see the country join the likes of the United States and Germany in adopting such a model.
The 11 NGBs appealing to Grainger, who starts as chair of UK Sport this week, are those of archery, badminton, baseball/softball, basketball, fencing, handball, table tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wheelchair rugby.
They believe there is ‘fat’ in the agency’s £137.5 million annual budget, around two-thirds of which is awarded to NGBs, with the balance spent on securing major events, supporting election campaigns at international level, and funding the ever-expanding English Institute of Sport.
As well as lobbying Grainger, they have arranged to meet sports minister Tracey Crouch – who ultimately holds the fate of UK Sport in her hands – and are considering commissioning a poll to find out whether or not taxpayers want to continue to bankroll the country’s relentless pursuit of medals at the expense of an increasing number of sports.
Warner, who declared he would even be prepared to sacrifice some of athletics’ annual £6.8 million elite funding if necessary, said: “People ask the question, do you think a competitive team in basketball, wheelchair rugby, or athletes making it through in table tennis, is more valuable than 12 cycling medals? And my answer is, ‘Yes!’ The British public looks at the velodrome and sees loads of British athletes winning medals crossing the line in British kit and, five days later, they don’t remember the race.”
Grainger responded to the calls for a review by saying UK Sport consulted on its strategy every four years and would do so again after Tokyo 2020, albeit warning that the amount of money available was likely to shrink.
But some of the NGBs lobbying for change insisted 2020 would be too late, saying they had already been forced to make redundancies, with wheelchair rugby unable even to afford to send a team to next year’s World Championship.