WE WANT ANSWERS
GB skiers fume over their sport’s funding scandal … even Eddie the Eagle weighs in!
AGROUP of skiers have written to UK Sport and GB Snowsport demanding answers after Sportsmail’s revelation that athletes are being charged up to £33,500 to be part of the national team. Britain’s favourite Winter Olympian Eddie Edwards also called for an overhaul of the system, saying it is ‘disgusting’ skiers are being priced out of competing for their country.
And a parent of a dual-nationality junior champion revealed his daughter may have to switch allegiance to France if she cannot afford to be part of the British set-up.
A Sportsmail investigation yesterday revealed that Olympic hopefuls have been forced to pay an annual fee of up to £33,500 to join the GB Snowsport programme, while directors have been paid six-figure fees through consultancy contracts.
That has led to a letter being sent to non-executive board members of GB Snowsport from an alliance of high-profile figures in skiing about what they call a ‘funding scandal’.
Signatories include four-time Olympic ski-racers Martin Bell and Emma Carrick-Smith, as well as British Ski Academy chief executive Malcolm Erskine. UK Sport, who provide £11.1million in Olympic funding to GB Snowsport, were copied in on the letter and have been urged to conduct ‘their own audit’ of the governing body.
The letter says: ‘With parents of team athletes speaking to the press and people speaking publicly about officers’ pay, we urge you to scrutinise the management accounts and publish a breakdown of funds that are spent on head office expenses versus those deployed on the athletes directly.’
It also questions why GB Snowsport chief executive Vicky Gosling and alpine director Paul Trayner were paid as consultants rather than as employees — as exposed by Sportsmail’s investigation — asking: ‘Do you consider it ethical to pay high levels of salary from public funds through related party transactions?’
Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards, the former British ski-jumper who competed at the 1988 Olympics, hit out at the ‘unfair system’. He told Sportsmail: ‘It widens the gap between the haves and have-nots. It is saying the British team has a price tag. The athletes with rich families or good sponsors can do it, but others are left by the wayside. That’s disgusting. There needs to be a fairer system.
‘I don’t think they should be charging that money, especially when the chief exec and other directors are on six figures. I can’t think of any logical reason why these guys are getting this money for doing that job. It’s ridiculous. When the Lottery money started going to sport, all it did was increase the wages of the directors at the Federations.’
Sportsmail also heard from the father of 15-year-old Candice Bomberg, a French gjunior slalom champion who decided to compete for GB but has been forced to crowdfund.
Tim Bomberg said: ‘We have set up a gofundme page. This is the only way we can see of funding Candice’s skiing and keeping her on the right trajectory from being French Under-14s slalom champion to representing GB. It may come down to a financial decision.
‘Due to her dual-nationality and winning medals for France, that may be the only option.’