Lottery slump puts Team GB's Olympic and Paralympic medal rush in jeopardy

Team GB

The prospect of Great Britain maintaining their stunning Olympic and Paralympic success is under threat amid an alarming slump in people playing the National Lottery.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Lottery takings for the first quarter of the financial year were down £158.8 million compared to the same period in 2015, a decrease of more than 8.5 per cent.

Around two-thirds of funding for Britain’s Olympians and Paralympians comes from the Lottery and any sustained dip would lead to a reduction in the £350 million they currently get from UK Sport over a four-year period.

The elite funding body is already facing having to cut the amount given to some sports unless the Government agrees to increase its own contribution to the organisation’s budget.

The unprecedented medal glut in Rio, where Team GB and Paralympics GB won a combined 214 across a record 34 sports, may force UK Sport to focus on those with the best chance of success in 2020 and 2024 when it comes to allocating its resources in the build-up to those Games.

That effect would be compounded if Lottery receipts do not pick up, something projected to hit UK Sport’s budget for 2017-21 to the tune of nearly £25 million, almost equivalent to the cost of the elite programme in a sport such as athletics or several smaller sports combined.

Athletes and administrators spent the whole of Rio 2016 stressing the importance of Lottery funding to Britain’s success since it began in 1997, even thanking “Lottery players” personally. They will be hoping that message got through when it comes to the remaining three-quarters of the financial year.

Decisions over how much sports will be given in the build-up to Tokyo 2020 will be taken before the end of this year, with national governing bodies having submitted strategic plans before the Rio Games, which will be re-examined in the light of results there.

UK Sport is tasked by the Government with allocating its money in such a way that ensures Britain delivers the most Olympic and Paralympic medals possible at each Games.

Under the way the system is constituted, if a sport can demonstrate its potential to win a certain number of medals at one of the next two Olympics or Paralympics, it will generally be funded to achieve that goal.

More sports competing for a piece of the same pie could force UK Sport to raise the bar at which money is allocated even higher.

Ironically, considering the women’s team won Olympic gold for the first time in Rio, hockey may be one of the sports under threat. The men’s side flopped last month and accounted for much of the £16.14 million investment in the sport at the elite level over the last four years.

Boxing (£13.76 million) almost failed to hit its podium target, while modern pentathlon (£6.97 million) was the only sport to fail to win a medal that had been tasked with doing so.

A sport like athletics (£26.82 million) will need to convince UK Sport the potential retirements of Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford before Tokyo will not decimate its medal chances in 2020 and 2024.

The pressure on UK Sport’s finances could force sports to become less reliant on handouts and capitalise commercially on their Rio success.

British Cycling (£30.27 million) is already making moves to become much less dependent on Lottery and Exchequer cash, although it remains to be seen whether it can be fully self-funded at the elite end in the same way as football, rugby and golf.

There was an attempt after London 2012 to create a British Sports Marketing Bureau to pool the commercial rights of UK Sport-funded NGBs but enough of them could not be convinced to sign up.

The Government’s new sports strategy, published last year, also makes it clear NGBs should take “active steps” to diversify their funding streams.