Government spending review puts GB Olympic funding in jeopardy

Potential delays have sparked fears in sporting boardrooms over LA 2028 medal chances and the future of world-leading staff

Team GB’s funding for LA 2028 has yet to be approved by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, prompting fears of a potential impact on medal chances. 
For the first time in four Olympic cycles, an announcement from the Government for hundreds of millions of pounds of support is not planned to coincide with Saturday’s homecoming party.
Telegraph Sport understands the Treasury has pushed back on demands to get financing signed off because Olympic and Paralympic funding is included in the department’s audit of public spending.
Potential delays of weeks or even months have sparked alarm in sporting boardrooms, with figures fearing world-leading coaches and staff could be poached by rival nations. Ministers have also been warned of the high risk that potential medallists could also walk away from the Olympic sector in pursuit of more financial certainty.
In response to inquiries by Telegraph Sport, the Government said in a statement: “We are fully committed to multi-year funding for our elite sport system and enabling our athletes to excel on the world stage. This means supporting them financially to match and build on their success in Paris, helping them to deliver at LA 2028. We will set out further details at the spending review.”
Over a 16-year period in which Team GB have achieved 60-plus medals at consecutive Games, the Government has made spending pledges within a week of the Olympics coming to an end. Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, will be in attendance at the homecoming event at Manchester’s AO Arena to reassure sporting chiefs and athletes of the new regime’s commitment to GB’s excellence at Games, which had been kick-started by the previous Labour Government. 
Voices within government, however, maintain ambitious levels of funding will be announced this year for both the Olympics and Paralympics. Any new administration would be expected to take some time to ensure scrutiny has taken place, one insider added. The delay is a Treasury-led decision.
At this stage after Tokyo in 2021, Boris Johnson announced a three-year package that amounted to £77.4 million a year to elite sport agency UK Sport, increasing from the £54 million a year baseline government funding from the previous cycle.
There is a nervousness within British sport about elite coaches and staff being picked off by rivals comes after Mel Marshall, who worked with Adam Peaty for almost two decades, said she was relocating to Australia to further her career.
Before leaving her post as Aquatics GB lead coach at its Loughborough Performance Centre, she said: “There were opportunities and there were offers [elsewhere], and there was a feeling of desire for the skillset I have.”
The delay in sign-off for funding comes after the Chancellor last month announced that she had instructed Treasury officials to undertake a rapid audit of public spending following the discovery of a £22 billion black hole of other government outgoings.
Team GB won 65 medals at Paris 2024, beating their tally from Tokyo by one. The total matches the team’s medal haul from London 2012 and is the joint-third-highest for Team GB at a single Games behind Rio 2016 (67 medals) and London 1908 (146). But Britain did get eight fewer golds than they did three years ago in Tokyo and 14 golds was only good enough for seventh in the medal table, GB’s lowest placing since Athens 2004.