Punchy statement from trio of NGBs calls for ringfenced UK Sport funding for team sports

The national governing bodies (NGB) for basketball, handball and volleyball have joined forces to call on UK Sport to ringfence at least 10 per cent of its budget for team sports.

Following the elite sports quango’s Tokyo 2020 funding cycle announcement last week, British Basketball, British Handball and British Volleyball released a statement “expressing dismay” and “disappointment” that most team sport had been overlooked.

Hockey was the only traditional team sport to receive any funding (£18m) in the latest cycle.

A statement made by the trio said: “It appears that UK Sport has no interest in team sports and in particular refuses to take responsibility for the need to fund their performance development, which was identified in its own review.”

The UK Sport review highlighted by the NGBs stated that the body would help enable sports “unable to target a medal a the next Games” to build “performance pathways for future success”.

“However, it now appears that no funding has been allocated to this area and many British sports bodies inside the bidding process will feel that identifying the category and insisting those sports bodies spend time, resources and money going through the bidding process, was a complete waste of time.”

In light of UK Sport’s exchequer increase, a ringfenced fund should be created for Summer and Winter Olympic team sports, according to the statement.

“Given the widespread research which acknowledges that it takes longer to develop medals in team sports and the delight in Britain with the women’s hockey gold in Rio, surely proportional funding would provide the opportunity for team sports in particular to develop ‘performance pathways for future success’.”