Much will be made in the coming weeks of the Government commitment to funding of sport in the next budget. At a time of cuts across all public services it is likely that there will be a further reduction.
This was not the case in the UK where Prime Minister David Cameron, buoyed by the success of the London Olympics made a guarantee that state funding would continue at a level of £125 million (E155 million).  That would give some comfort but the story elsewhere in Europe gives rise for much greater concern, particularly among countries where an EU IMF bailout has either been implemented or is on the cards.
The Spanish Sports Minister Miguel Cardenal announced to parliament last week that core funding for the nations sports associations would be reduced next year from E47 million to E34 million, a reduction of 34 per cent.
Three years ago the level of central support was at E82 million.  He admitted that sporting performance would be affected in the long term but said there was no alternative.
Funding for high performance centre’s is down by 28 per cent and the money ring fenced towards the maintenance of existing facilities as opposed to the construction of anything new.
In Greece the situation is worse.  An expected Olympic funding within the run up to London of E30 million was reduced to little more than E10 million as austerity budgets cut deep.
The nation which gave birth to the games and which hosted as recently as 2004 sent a team of 102 athletes to London, 50 fewer than had been the case to Beijing and with substantially less support.
Spyros Capralos, President of the Greek Olympic Committee was phlegmatic speaking to the Wall Street Journal during the games. “When a country does not have enough to pay for salaries, pensions, drugs and hospitals, it is normal that funding for sport has got to come down.”
As was the case in Ireland, Portugal maintained its commitment of E14.9 million to Olympic directed elite sport but now that one cycle has ended it is feared the next will be less well supported.
When central funding is tighter as it inevitably will sport needs to turn to other sources.  The biggest funder of grassroots sport across the whole of the EU is the public itself through membership and subscriptions.
This accounts for two thirds of the money needed to keep clubs and grassroots infrastructure going.  That is four times the average of local authority funding and ten times what is achieved through commercial sponsorship.
The recent capital grants scheme from the Department of Transport Tourism and Sport has helped take the edge off funding cuts for smaller associations in particular though they are the ones likely to have to cut rather than trim programmes if central funding is reduced.
The meeting this week in Dublin of the EU and IMF members of the troika may take time out to watch some sport while they are here, most likely on television in their hotel rooms. What they impose upon government afterwards will likely have a material impact on sport, unless alternative sources of funding, and related better partnerships are encouraged and put in place.
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