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Brtish Swimming continues support for Water Polo
By Eileen Waller on the 18th, March 2009Chief Executive pledges to fund both squads
Following the announcement from UK Sport that Water Polo was to receive a 75% cut in expected funding the British Swimming board has maintained its commitment to find support for both the men's and women's programmes. National Performance Director Nick Hume has been working with Ian Mason, Director of World Class Operations, on the budget for next year and a long term strategy with a view to having both teams competing at the London 2012 Olympics. During the British Championships in Manchester this weekend British Swimming Chief Executive Officer David Sparkes and Mason attended the British Water Polo Committee meeting to explain what steps British Swimming has taken for the sport and carefully listen to their views on the way forward. After the meeting Sparkes commented: The outcome from this meeting is a realistic but challenging budget based on known resources to ensure that both teams are prepared and can compete in the European Championships this summer. The Committee recognised the significant challenges the sport faced and the need for an innovative approach moving forward and offered some significant ideas for Ian Mason and Nick Hume to follow up on. The athlete representatives were fully engaged in this discussion and made some interesting and extremely helpful contributions. We now plan some further work on this with a view to reporting back to a special Committee meeting in May for further consultation and we will feedback to the Board in June a proposed strategy from Sept 2009 through to London. Central to the strategy will be retaining the High performance centre in Manchester for the Women and looking at options for the Men's programme to build on their progress to date. “We recognise that we now need to urgently communicate more regularly with the athletes and coaches as the strategy is emerging and have undertaken that the NPD will meet with all the athletes and coaches in the next 10-14 days to outline our current thinking and bring them into the consultation process. We all recognise this is a difficult time for Water Polo but everyone remains committed to working together to find a solution and this remains a high priority for the sport.
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