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British Basketball Mired In Funding Crisis

UK Sport refused to fund elite basketball because it is unlikely to win medals at Tokyo 2020.GETTY IMAGES

British Basketball is "in the grip of a funding crisis" that could mean all its int'l teams are "withdrawn from competitions," according to Martyn Ziegler of the LONDON TIMES. UK Sport has refused to give any funding to elite basketball because it is "unlikely to win any medals at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics." The funding body has been criticized for allocating £25M ($35.1M) to "posh" Winter Olympic sports and "missing the opportunity for basketball to inspire youngsters in urban areas through the success of Great Britain teams." Temi Fagbenle, a GB women's player who also plays in the WNBA, said, "When I see sports like modern pentathlon and skeleton, which aren't popular in inner-city or working-class communities, get millions of pounds in funding, I wonder what sort of world the powers that be are living in, and what agenda they are trying to push." Basketball gets £6M ($8.4M) for grassroots funding in England but "none of that can be spent on the British men's and women's teams, even though they are doing well in European competition." British Basketball will have only £100,000 ($140,000) to spend from April 1. Its CEO, Lisa Wainwright, who pays her own air fares to overseas tournaments, said, "UK Sport has just announced it will give £630,000 ($883,400) to fund a single climber for Tokyo -- for not much more than that you could fund all the basketball teams. I believe the policy is wrong" (LONDON TIMES, 2/17).

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