Sport England Reveals £480m Budget

Grass-roots funding body Sport England has unveiled the allocations by sport of its £480m budget with athletics and cycling handed major financial boosts.

The budget allocations are part of Sport England’s plan to get 1m people more active by the time of the London 2012 Olympics and cover a spread of 46 sports over four years from 2009 to 2013.

Athletics investment has more than tripled to £20.4m while cycling has doubled to more than £24.3m. 14 sports, including handball and fencing, received funding for the first time.

Football, expectedly, is the biggest winner with more than £25m added to the £60m given to the Football Foundation which invests grants at grass-roots level.

Cricket, however, will only get a 3% increase of £1m – to £37.8m, but the England and Wales Cricket Board remains the governing body receiving the most cash.

The news will be a major boost to the sports bodies, particularly following the announcement of elite athlete body UK Sport’s £550m funding allocations made earlier this month which saw investment its eight Olympic sports remain unconfirmed due to a £50m shortfall in the estimated cashpot.

Once such sport was table tennis which, despite losing out on UK Sport money, will see its funds from Sport England slightly increase to £9.3m, up from £8.12m.

Getting more people playing sport was a key factor in helping London win the right to host the 2012 Olympics.

And according to results released last week from a Sport England survey of 191,000 people, the number of over-16s playing sport at least three times a week is now 6.8m, 16.5% of the adult population.

Selected Sport England funding allocations by sport:

Cricket: £37.8m
Rugby Union: £30.7m
Rugby League: £29.4m
Tennis: £26.8m
Football: £25.6m
Cycling £24.3m
Swimming: £20.9m
Badminton: £20.8m
Athletics: £20.4m
Netball: £17.3m