It was announced this week that UK Sport has cut its £8.5 million funding that goes to basketball, down to nothing.
Zero. Zilch. Nowt.
This cut happened last year, after Britain's disappointing performance at the 2012 Olympics. Luckily, this decision was U-turned, after an online petition went viral and NBA star Luol Deng wrote a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, pleading for the Government's support in this matter.
Recently though, Great Britain narrowly missed out on a spot at the 2014 Basketball World Cup, losing out to the Ukraine on points difference. So, this was taken into account, and committees went away and did committeeish things, and decided that Britain has no chance of winning a basketball medal in the 2016 or 2020 Olympics.
This is probably true. The U.S.A and Spain dominate the international game, and countries like France, Australia and Canada have better basketball legacies and more superstars to direct their teams towards success.
This doesn't mean that the funding should be cut though. You can't judge a sport on its performance in the Olympics. Participation rates in basketball are at an all-time high. It is the third quickest growing sport in the U.K, and in the age range of 12-15, it is the second most played sport, after the obvious choice of football.
No disrespect to the participants of other sports that have lost their funding, such as wheelchair fencing and goalball (no, me neither), but classing basketball in the same category as these sports is ridiculous. I currently play for three local basketball teams. An adult team, a junior team and my school team. The adult team has 15 players who come down every week, and new people joining every week. The junior team is currently struggling to give everyone playing time, as there are about 17 eligible players, and only 12 spots on the team. It's the same with the school team. It is the most popular sport in the school with over 25 kids turning up, week in, week out. Many of them don't do any other sports, as they enjoy basketball so much. Without the funding given by UK Sport, you have to wonder how these small clubs, usually run at no profit, will survive.
Of course, petitions have gone up on the internet again to save basketball's funding (see bottom of the article). Although I urge you to sign it, I remain pessimistic (no change there, then). I don't see the Government making another U-turn, especially in this time of economic recession.
But I really hope they do.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/60243
- Luol Deng helped to reinstate British Basketball last year, but faces an uphill struggle to do it again
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