Australia's Paralympic football team "faces the axe" after all of its funding was cut by the Australian Sports Commission, according to ABC. As part of Australia's Winning Edge policy, funding is "directed to sports which have a higher chance of winning a medal at the Olympics or Paralympics." The Australian Sports Commission has decided the Pararoos' team world ranking of 10th "is not successful enough," and cut the team's A$175,000 ($164,000) funding. Pararoos head coach Paul Brown "says he is devastated." Brown: "We have state programs all round the country, but the national program is going to be no more because they just won't continue with our funding." Brown, who has coached the team since '06, "has been told not to talk about the cuts." Brown: "I was told to keep quiet about the situation, but the program is more important than me." Brown said that the Pararoos "had a good chance of achieving a ranking in the top five." But Australian Institute of Sport Dir Matt Favier said the performance of "para-football" has been unconvincing, and that he "does not believe the team will quality" for the 2016 Rio Paralympics (ABC, 7/7).
