British Basketball Receive Funding After Government U-Turn

British Basketball will receive £1.18 million in funding after the UK Government reversed its decision to strip the national governing body of its financial support earlier this year.

The figure from Sport England does not match the £7 million of Olympic funding that was withdrawn in February but the organisation will receive technical support from UK Sport on aspects such as coach development to aid the men’s women’s, under 20 men’s and under 20 women’s teams from November this year to March 2017.

British Basketball must invest £592,000 of its own money, while the senior women’s team must target a top 12 position in next year’s European Championship Finals and the senior men’s team must qualify for the 2017 European Championship Finals as conditions of the agreement.

“The last few months have been tough ones for everyone involved with basketball in this country,” British Basketball performance chairman Roger Moreland said.

“The Minister has listened carefully to our case and I would like to thank her for the role she has played in brokering a solution.”

UK Sport will also look into basketball’s under-performance against its targets in previous years and aim to address this issue.

“UK Sport has been working closely with Sport England and DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) to address the questions relating to the appropriate level of support to British Basketball,” UK Sport chief executive Liz Nichol said.

“We are delighted this has now been agreed with UK Sport’s technical expertise in high performance support complementing the investment from Sport England  to help basketball continue to progress to become more competitive at the elite level.”