More for your money

The ECB must get its house in order or risk losing £11 million of key grassroots funding. They have been given until November this year to provide a satisfactory `whole-sport plan' to Sport England in order to secure the money.

Sport England, an agency responsible for distributing National Lottery and government money, recently announced a four-year funding plan for 32 sports totalling £315m. Cricket has been given a one-year interim payment of £6.4m, which is down £400,000 on last year. The remaining £11m over three years is conditional on the ECB's "modernisation process".

"What we're looking to ensure is that the grass-roots and development parts of the sport are properly prioritised," Stephen Baddeley, Sport England's director of sport, tells TWC. "There is a tendency for governance of cricket to lie solely with the counties but we want to see governance that has representation from all parts of the game and possibly from business. Ultimately it's about ensuring the whole game is managed appropriately by the ECB."

Baddeley, a former badminton Commonwealth gold medallist, also expressed concern that cricket's new TV deal would benefit the whole game. "A lot of money has been generated and we would like to see an appropriate portion of that invested in grass roots rather than players' wages," says Baddeley. "It's a question of balance. Our feeling at the moment is that an inappropriately large amount could go into the county game. We don't think that lottery and government money should be the only funding going into grass roots."

Sport England, whose funding contributed to the setting up of the National Academy, judges the way sports govern themselves against a number of criteria including success at elite level, numbers of participants and clubs and how well the whole community is served. "We'd like to see more provision for girls and women getting into the sport," says Baddeley. "But sports should play to their strengths and cricket is always likely to be male-dominated. Where cricket can play a full part in the equality agenda is in engaging ethnic minorities and the whole community."

Baddeley is keen to stress that Sport England is in constant discussion with the ECB and that it is not in a position to dictate to the ECB how to run the game. "We are an important agency but this has to be up to the individual governing bodies. Our role must be to work in partnership with the ECB."

The ECB is confident that it will meet Sport England's requirements and secure future funding. David Morgan, the ECB chairman, says: "Following extensive dialogue with Sport England, the ECB is nearing completion of our corporate governance review. I am confident that the modernisation referred to is well on the way to completion."