Tennis: Sports Minister Warns of Need to Expand the Reach of Tennis

Richard Caborn has warned tennis that it must reach out to deprived and ethnic minority communities if it is to keep millions of pounds of government funding.

Under plans announced by the chancellor Gordon Brown in the 2002 budget 16 sports are set to receive £60m over three years between them to improve facilities at clubs, with the first tranche of funding due in March.

The bulk of the money has been earmarked for the four main sports - football, rugby, tennis and cricket, each of which will receive £9.4m - but Caborn has made it clear that in future sports will receive central funding only if they can prove they are delivering on the government's health, social inclusion and anti-crime agenda.

The £9.4m grant is conditional on the sports increasing participation among the C, D and E social groupings and among ethnic minorities, and it is these areas where tennis and to a lesser extent rugby are struggling to meet their targets. Both sports have traditionally thrived in affluent areas and among the middle classes but the sports minister is determined to see they increase their reach.

Caborn highlighted tennis as having most ground to make up. Despite the millions of pounds raised by Wimbledon being invested in development each year the Lawn Tennis Association's record on producing elite players is woeful and the inflexible attitude of many clubs to young players is central to the problem.

The extra funding to clubs is seen as a means of reducing the number of young people who stop all sporting activity when they leave school. Currently there is a 70% dropout rate and deficiencies in the structure of club sport have been targeted as one of the main causes.

"We have set about reducing the high dropout rate and the decision to allocate this money, £9.4m for the major sports over three years, is part of that process," said Caborn. "But it has also exposed weaknesses in the club structure in many sports, particularly when it comes to including people from the broadest social spectrum.

"The LTA is not as good as it should be. The problem for British tennis is that at the moment our system would not produce the Williams sisters. There are youngsters with the talent out there but we do not have a system that will identify them and give them the opportunity to move into the professional game. That depends on a good club infrastructure."

Caborn said that to increase participation clubs should use the community colleges specialising in sport established earlier this year and, in the case of tennis, tap into park facilities.

The strongest amateur club structure exists in football, with 40,000 clubs across the country, and Caborn is keen to exploit that network for the benefits of other sports.

"Football is drawing in a wide range of participants, so we would encourage other sports to try and work alongside those clubs. If we could get cricket clubs and tennis in alongside football it would surely increase their appeal. There has been a huge increase in girls' football and these girls should surely be a target for the LTA," he said.

"What we want is to increase participation and the way to do that is in partnership with governing bodies, clubs and schools. We can help the sports with funding but they need to be creative and attract people from across the spectrum."

A spokeswoman for the LTA said it had established 23 city tennis clubs in inner cities as part of a drive to increase inclusivity. Links between clubs and schools were also strong, she said.

Terry Burwell, development officer of the Rugby Football Union, said it would start delivering money to clubs this year and rejected criticism that it has been slow to distribute funding to clubs.

"We deliberately waited before allocating the money because we wanted to identify exactly where it would be best spent to match the government's demands," he said.