Op Ed: British Sport Has Never Had It So Good

The billion-dollar debate has been the talk of British Olympic circles for the past three months. But one fundamental point has been missed.

Quite simply, to paraphrase former Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, British sport has never had it so good.

Three years ago, Gordon Brown asked U.K. Sport to put together a 2008-2012 performance grant spending plan. Together with the British Olympic Association, the organization devised a set of targets for Team GB to finish fourth on the London medal table.

The skeptics said it could never be done, pointing to the single British gold medal in 1996 and to the hard-won 10th place in 2004. Undaunted, the two governing bodies asked for $899 million. There was a feel of a "think of a number, and double it" mentality. U.K. Sport was committed to paying $400 million in grants through 2008, using cash from the central government as well as the National Lottery.

Extraordinarily, Chancellor Brown, previously best known for his catchphrase of "prudence," said that instead the sports lobby would get most of the cash: $449 million from the Treasury and $300 million from the Lottery. Leaving just $150 million for U.K Sport.

That last chunk of money, to this date, has never been raised - causing the wailing and gnashing of teeth among Britain's fearful sports administrators.

Fast forward to September 2008, and British teams return from Beijing with the best Olympic and Paralympic results for a century. Fourth place in the Olympic medal table - all achieved on little more than half of the budget for 2008-2012.

Therein lays the nonsense surrounding the uproar about "spending cuts" from a handful of sports of which most Britons know nothing and care even less - handball? volleyball? fencing?

Even the underachievers in Beijing, such as track and field, have come away from this month's grant announcements with near parity with what they had received in the Beijing Olympiad. It is noteworthy that while around 30 elite track athletes are to lose all funding, there has not been any suggestion in British sport that well-paid administrators should take a 10 percent wage cut.

There remains a small matter of UK Sport having to somehow raise the $75 million balance between now and 2012 in the least sympathetic commercial environment in 80 years. But for British sport, things really are not too bad.

That has much to do with the manner in which the government has "managed" public expectations. This may, the cynically disposed suggest, have something to do with the controversial return to the cabinet of Labour's chief spin doctor, Peter Mandelson.

Since Beijing, dire warnings of cutbacks have seeped out. By the day before the announcement, when Culture and Sport minister Andy Burnham went public with an extra $75 million he had miraculously discovered in the bottom drawer of a Whitehall office, some of the more naive sports press were writing of how he had "ridden to the rescue of British sport." Job done, Lord Mandelson.

Still, some are not quite "on message." Andrew Hunt, barely a month into his job as BOA CEO, accused the government of failing "to honor their funding promise to all our Olympic sports."

Now just hold on a moment, Andy: we are in the midst of the biggest economic recession the world has suffered since the 1930s. People - though not you, of course, in your new $250,000 per year role - are losing their jobs and homes. And the government agrees to spend more than half as much again on sport in the next four years as it did between 2004 and 2008.

Just look at the figures again: $400 million and 19 gold medals in 2008; $899 million, plus home advantage, and how many golds in 2012?

Back in the bad old days of the mid-1990s, before the then-Conservative government allowed Lottery cash to fund Britain's sports teams, only under-resourced rower Steve Redgrave was able to go to the Atlanta Games and come home with gold. Between now and 2012, even the worst funded of Britain's teams will be significantly better funded than at any time in history.

Now, it is up to their administrators and coaches to deliver some medals.

Written by Steven Downes

Steven Downes is a London-based reporter for Around the Rings and a guest contributer to this week's Op-Ed.

Op Ed is a weekly column of opinion and ideas from Around the Rings. Comments, as well as guest columns are welcomed: comment@aroundtherings.com