Olympics fund faces £100m cut

Britain's top competitors are facing a funding crisis which could wreck hopes of repeating the feats of last year's Sydney Olympics, according to a Government report published today.

A fall in lottery ticket sales and an increase in the number of causes earmarked for financial support means British sport in total could see as much as £100 million wiped off its budget over the next four years.

The crisis is particularly severe for Britain's elite athletes, who received £25m funding a year in the run-up to Sydney. It is now predicted that that figure would fall by £10 million a year in the build-up to Athens in 2004.

Speaking at the launch of today's report of the Elite Sports Funding Review Group, Jack Cunningham urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to meet that funding shortfall with money from the Treasury.

He said: "We believe the recommendations we've made today should be acted on early and in full if they are to have an impact on our performances in Athens."

The funding crisis is the most striking finding of a report commissioned by the Prime Minister last October into the future of sports funding in this country.

Former Cabinet enforcer Cunningham said: "One of the key, urgent issues we have found is the need to sustain the level of funding at pre-Sydney levels.

"We have to sustain the funding at the level before last year's Olympics if there is to be any hope at all of not only learning the lessons of why we did so well, but building on them."

Cunningham and his team, which included 1976 Olympic bronze medallist Brendan Foster and former British Olympic hockey captain Jane Sixsmith, were asked by Blair to look at not only the levels of funding for athletes but also the way the cash is distributed.

He added: "We need to introduce a one-stop shop system so athletes don't have to go around from one governing body to another looking for funding."

In addition to looking at athlete funding, Cunningham's task force was also asked to look at plans for the new UK Sports Institute following criticism from some athletes - like heptathlon gold-medallist Denise Lewis - that Britain's facilities are "Third World".

The task force has come up with 50 recommendations which Cunningham described as "radical". They will be handed to ministers later today.