Olympics: Caborn Urges Team Spirit for 'strategic' Games Funds

The sports minister Richard Caborn has called for an end to the bitter row over the funding of elite athletes for the 2012 Olympics and a return of the consensus that won the games for London. He said he supported the argument for additional cash, but stressed the case had to be systematically argued - and he defended the Chancellor Gordon Brown's commitment to sports funding.

"It is disappointing there has been this little blip, but if we get that consensus back that helped us win gold on July 6, we can win many golds in 2012," he said.

The unity behind the games project has been undermined over the past month after the Chancellor's pre-Budget report failed to include an announcement of extra funding for athletes for 2012. The British Olympic Association, led by the former Conservative sports minister Lord Moynihan, has set a target of moving Britain from 10th to fourth place in the medals table by 2012. The BOC had argued for an extra £50m a year, and said the lack of funds was a "devastating" setback, whereas Caborn said the association's behaviour was unacceptable.

Caborn hopes the political temperature will be lowered over the holiday period - and there is optimism in Whitehall that there could be a positive funding announcement before the Budget.

He said the Department of Culture, Media and Sport had been working with UK Sport, the government agency responsible for funding elite athletes, on sophisticated performance modelling to assess how much cash is needed. "I do not believe you should set a target like moving from 10th to fourth. We are trying to get a more methodical approach."

Caborn said Scrooge-like depictions of the Chancellor's attitude to sport were unfair. "There is money in the system," he said. "If we do want more, we have to go and put that case to the Treasury."