UK Sport has today announced the creation of a £3 million Aspiration Fund to help currently unfunded sports that have a realistic chance of qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Sadly this fund will be of little help to British Handball, and indeed many other unfunded sports, whose qualifying process for the Tokyo games is already well underway. Furthermore, having received no funding for many years, sports like Handball cannot just qualify in two or even four years.
British Handball has long campaigned for a fairer funding model that would offer all Olympic and Paralympic sports some baseline funding and invest for the future, while leaving Team GB’s medal prospects intact.
UK Sport has confirmed that today’s announcement is a separate one-off step for the 2020 Olympics and is not linked to its recent consultation on funding strategy post-Tokyo. UK Sport is expected to make a decision on future funding strategy by early 2019.
Paul Bray, British Handball Chairman commented “While we welcome any new money for unfunded sports, as far as handball is concerned this announcement comes much too late. We will continue to lobby UK Sport to take a fairer long-term approach to funding and look forward to the outcome of the recent consultation”
