The new chairman of UK Sport, Rod Carr, has warned
boxing's warring governing body that it will remove responsibility for British
Olympic boxers from its grasp if it does not introduce reforms by a deadline of
next Monday.
Derek Mapp, chairman of the British Amateur Boxing
Association (Baba), was voted out at an extraordinary general meeting last week
despite British boxers securing five medals at London 2012. Mapp had the
support of the Welsh Amateur Boxing Association but was ousted by England and
Scotland.
Carr, appointed chairman of the Olympic sport funding
agency last month to replace Sue Campbell, said he was "desperately
disappointed" by the situation and said that its first priority would be
to protect the athletes already in the system so that their training was not
affected.
"We're a bit nonplussed and aggravated," he
said.
Boxing was handed an increase of 44% in its funding to
£13.8m for the Rio cycle but Carr said the money would be diverted through a
special purpose vehicle (SPV) if the situation was not resolved by 10 June.
"The public government funding will flow through us
into that legal vehicle if necessary. It is not what we want to do, we want
boxing to sort themselves out, but if they don't, that is what we will do – and
we will carry on doing that until boxing sorts itself out," he said.
"When that happens, which I am confident it will,
then we will dissolve the SPV and give the thing back in its normal
state."
Carr, a former Royal Yachting Association chief
executive, said there was still a chance the situation could be resolved within
the next six days but that if the constitution was not redrawn to UK Sport's
satisfaction, it would divert the funding.
Carr said that he and UK Sport, which will invest a
record £347m in Olympic sport in the four years leading up to the Rio Games,
would consider themselves to have failed if Team GB did not surpass its London
tally of 120 medals in Rio.
He said it was a "stretchy" target but added:
"Do we think we can do it? Yes, we do feel more medals are achievable. It
is a fixed target, the board and I will have considered ourselves to have
failed if we don't make those targets."
Carr also said he expected to have a much closer working
relationship with the British Olympic Association, where Lord Coe recently
replaced Lord Moynihan as chairman, than had been the case in the past. He also
said it would work more closely with Sport England, the grassroots sport quango
that it will share an office with from next year, on areas such as talent
identification. (Source)
