In attacking UK Sport’s rationale for rejecting her sport’s appeal against the loss of all its public funding for elite programmes in the build-up to the next Olympic Games, Anne Smillie last night questioned the tenets upon which UK Sport’s philosophy is founded.
Doubts have repeatedly been raised in recent years over the medals obsessed strategy that has seen money increasingly ploughed into sports played by an elite few both in the UK and globally.
Its proponents claim that doing so has the capacity to inspire future generations, with Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of UK Sport, the body charged with distributing what is a combination of money from the exchequer and the national lottery, one again claiming yesterday that the purpose of winning these prizes is “to inspire the nation.”
Yet that, almost by definition, only applies to those then given the opportunity to take part in sports in which success is achieved and sits uneasily alongside the effective abandonment of sports that are disproportionately popular within ethnic minorities means an important tool in efforts to bring communities together is not being utilised.
Hugely popular within Asian communities given the predominance of athletes from the Far East and the Indian sub-continent at the upper end of the world rankings in all disciplines, badminton fits that description, as does basketball, which is particularly popular within the black community yet previously had its support withdrawn.
Those are the issues that must be examined in the context of Smillie’s claim yesterday that it is time for the British government to re-visit the decision making process.
“Badminton is one of the most popular sports in the UK,” she noted.
“Over three quarters of a million people, of all ages, play it regularly. It is probably the most accessible sport with every town and village in the land having a badminton court and it is not expensive.
“It plays a significant role in the health and well-being of the nation but all this will be at risk if young people stop taking up the sport.
“Questions should be asked about the way in which decisions on sports funding are reached. No money is likely to lead to no medals. However, increasing investment in less accessible sports than badminton does not necessarily mean that they will exceed or improve on their previous targets
“There are a number of sports that are far less accessible to ordinary people than badminton and far more expensive to take part in who have attracted greater investment.
“I would suggest that spreading the investment a little more equitably is more likely to lead to more success.”
Those are vital matters for politicians to address, but in the short-term Smillie admitted that there will be worrying implications for leading domestic players in a year that they should be looking forward to the World Badminton Championships being staged in Glasgow.
While Scottish sports administrators have reacted quickly to implement contingency plans since it became evident that, in particular, Commonwealth Games and European Championship finalist Kirsty Gilmour would lose her funding, the entire shortfall cannot immediately be made up.
“Kirsty is a Commonwealth Games and European Championships silver medallist who reached a world ranking of 15 to qualify for the Rio Olympics,” Smillie noted.
“Her goal was to continue her development and mount a serious challenge for a medal in Tokyo.
“Needless to say Badminton Scotland will support Kirsty and she will work with Malaysian coach Tat Meng Wong, who we have brought to Scotland to work with our premier players in the build up to the TOTAL BWF World Championships 2017 in Glasgow this August.
“Badminton Scotland is fortunate to have positive support from sportscotland, but they too are under financial pressure and will not be able to completely fill the gap.”
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