English sport’s governing bodies are braced for central government funding cuts after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, made her spring statement. In a joint conference call last month hosted by Sport England, the non-departmental public body responsible for allocating grassroots funding, representatives of the major sports formed the impression they were unlikely to be spared the impact of the bracing spending cuts to be imposed on government departments this year.
Sport England invests more than £250m promoting sport and physical activity each year, with their funding provided by the national lottery and central government, which is in turn handed on to the sport’s governing bodies. Representatives of the bigger sports such as the Football Association, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) were all on the recent call and left in little doubt that securing funding is likely to be increasingly challenging over the coming years.
