Eight British Olympic Sports Face Crisis Over 2012 Funding Budgets

Eight Olympic sports could end up penniless before the 2012 Olympic Games even begin. The British Olympic Association's chief commercial officer, Hugh Chambers, said yesterday that any additional funds raised through the 'Team 2012' program would go to those eight sports already struggling with a £50m budget deficit but only if they met strict performance objectives.

"There is no commitment that the money will go to those eight sports," said Chambers, "and the reason for that is that it's consistent with the Mission 2012 strategy and 'no compromise' strategy that, if they don't meet the criteria of success that Mission 2012 demands, then they won't qualify for it."

But, given the damage done by the £50m funding shortfall announced last year – with those sports having suffered budget cuts of up to 76% forcing them to make redundancies among performance directors and coaches – quite how the eight sports are realistically expected to meet those performance criteria has not yet been explained.

Chambers went on to say that any money raised by the Team 2012 project could actually be redirected to one of the already fully funded sports.

"UK Sport retain the [right] to say that, if one of these elite sports that we all expect to medal in London starts to fall behind their international competition, it may well be that funds need to be directed into that. Whereas another sport that is below the line has front loaded its funding and is now requesting more money to meet its objectives and it isn't doing so, why would you put more good money into that?"

All eight sports have already taken up UK Sport's offer to "frontload" their funding – a huge gamble, which meant using up their entire 2012 budget over two years, instead of eking it out over four with the hope of securing further funding by 2011. If no further funding materializes – either through the private sector or because the sports fail to meet the BOA's performance criteria – all eight sports could end up virtually penniless with a year to go before the London Games.

Sir Clive Woodward, the BOA's director of elite performance, is due to start work with one of the eight sports imminently.