2012 Lottery sales 'harming grassroots sport'
08/08/2007 |
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Camelot's success in selling Olympic lottery scratchcards could actually damage grassroots and community sport to the tune of more than £70m, according to new research.
It was predicted that sales of Olympic games would attract 59% of lottery players but in reality 77% of scratchcard sales are now Olympic-related. That means less money for the traditional lottery good causes - sport, arts, heritage and charities. The Central Council of Physical Recreation, which carried out the research, calculates that Sport England, which could have expected to lose £55.4m to Olympic "cannibalisation", will in fact be £72.5m worse off.
Tim Lamb, the CCPR chief executive, said: "The irony is that the more people buy Olympic lottery tickets, the less money there is for grassroots sport. Community clubs are in danger of becoming a victim of the Olympics' pulling power."
Camelot has to raise £2.2bn towards the £9.3bn London 2012 construction budget and its success so far was one reason why it was awarded preferred-bidder status yesterday for a third successive licence term. Promotion of a positive sporting legacy from the Games will become harder, with the cash drain on community sport making the target of getting two million more people active by 2012 even more challenging.
In 2000-01 Sport England was distributing about £300m of lottery funding but next year non-Olympic distributions may be half that amount.
(Source: Guardian.co.uk)
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