The UK Government said last night that it had “reached the very limit” of public investment in Olympic sport after agreeing a new £50 million funding deal for London 2012 athletes.
UK newspaper, the Guardian reports that the last-minute injection of £29million from the Exchequer and £21million from extra Lottery receipts brings public funding in elite sport to £550million since the Athens Games in 2004. Yet it still leaves a £50million shortfall in a £600million package announced in the March 2006 Budget by Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor.
This extra money, which would have topped up the £304million secured for the four-year London cycle to £354million, has not materialised during the depressed economic climate.
The bailout secured, by Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, means that all Olympic and Paralympic sports will receive some funding in preparation for the London Games.
Burnham told the paper that efforts to rally businesses around 2012 athletes would continue but said that no more money would be coming from the Treasury or the Lottery. “I have made it clear that we have reached the very limit of public investment in Olympic sport,” he said. “I accept that raising private funds is challenging in the current economic conditions but British business has a great track record of investing in sport. I urge them to rally round the British athletes as we prepare for this historic moment of our first home Olympics in generations.”
Officials in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, aided by Fast Track, the marketing company, have failed to attract private-sector money to their Medal Hopes scheme, designed to plug the gap in 2012 funding. In a sign of the financial pressures on the Olympics, leading sponsors of the 2012 Games met the Prime Minister to discuss ways to beat the credit crunch. Lord Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee, said: “In these challenging times, we all need to look at creative ways in which we can make the most of these [sponsorship] partnerships.”
