Tuesday, November 5Sports. Travel. Events

£740m ‘black hole’: UK sport bodies face financial meltdown

Sport governing bodies in the United Kingdom are facing hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue losses from events and matches called off because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a hearing on Tuesday industry bosses from football, cricket, rugby union, Olympic and Paralympic sports told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (DCMS) of the financial crisis for UK sporting organisations. 

The Daily Telegraph reports that sport’s “darkest hour” will see a £740m “black hole” in the budgets of governing bodies. While the BBC puts the figure at “almost £700m”. 

According to the Telegraph UK sporting organisations are facing the following:

  • £200m shortfall for English Football League clubs
  • £107m losses for rugby union if England’s autumn internationals are cancelled
  • £380m loss for cricket if the summer fixtures are cancelled
  • £53m needed to fund Olympic and Paralympic sports ahead of next year’s games in Tokyo

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What the sporting bodies told the DCMS

Tom Harrison, chief executive, England and Wales Cricket Board
“We anticipate that with no cricket this year, which is the worst-case scenario for our planning purposes, it could be as bad as £380m across the game. That would be the loss of 800 days of cricket across all our professional clubs and the ECB. If you take all that revenue and put it at risk then that is the worst-case scenario for us this year.”

Bill Sweeney, chief executive, Rugby Football Union
“It is a very significant loss of revenue and we are doing what we can to mitigate it. Twickenham is a major asset for us – 85% of our income comes from hosting men’s international games at Twickenham. When you own a stadium it is a major cost and at the same time brings in large revenue. If this was to be prolonged and the Six Nations games were impacted, then it would be a catastrophic impact on rugby union in England. We would be looking at some very severe situations.”

Rick Parry, chairman, English Football League
“We are heading for a financial hole of about £200m by the end of September. We have a great deal of uncertainty around next season of course, the great undetermined matter being when we’re going to return to play in front of crowds, which for the EFL is absolutely critical.”

Katherine Grainger, chair, UK Sport
“As far as UK Sport is concerned, our funding runs out at the end of March 2021, which obviously leaves a few months’ gap in the lead-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Unless we know that that will be filled, the risks increase for everyone. Every athlete that would have right now been three months away from the biggest event of their lives is isolated individually at home. The sports that support them we already know are at some financial risk. The longer the situation goes on they will be at greater risk going forward, and it means that the risks going to the Games next year is increasing. What we really need, and ideally need confirmation of in the next few weeks, is that we could get a one-year rollover to go into March 2022 to make sure we can reassure all the sports that their funding is going to be in place and they can have some consistency going forward through to the Games next summer.”

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