Hockeyroos going from golden girls to funding scrap heap

Hockeyroos are set to lose up to 60 per cent of funding as they are not considered a medal chance at the 2024 Olympics.

The Hockeyroos are set to come of second best in the scamble for funding Picture: AAP

Australian Institute of Sport directors believe the future of one of the country’s flagship women’s sporting teams, the Hockeyroos, is so dismal that it has slashed future funding to the team by 60 per cent.

In a brutal analysis, the AIS bosses have determined that the women’s team, which hasn’t won an Olympic medal in five cycles, has no hope of being on the podium at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Yet the Hockeyroos are revered as one of the country’s most successful teams, winning Olympic gold in 1988, 1996 and 2000 and four Commonwealth Games gold medals, the last at the Glasgow Games in 2014.

While the women’s funding has been slashed, the men’s hockey team, the Kookaburras, won a bronze Olympic medal in London 2012 and are considered a podium chance at the Tokyo Olympics, which start in July, and Paris 2024. The men’s team has had a funding increase.

Hockey Australia CEO Matt Favier said it would be a “kick in the guts” if funding was cut and would have mammoth repercussions.

“We are really concerned about not only the risk of reduced funding that may play out for hockey, but for the entire sporting community,” Favier said. “At a time when youth sport participation is being challenged, youth obesity is on the rise, reducing levels of investment in a sport such as hockey would be a real kick in the guts.”

Other Olympic sports which have heavy female participation, like synchronised swimming, softball and gymnastics have also been heavily downgraded, losing more than half their current funding, and national sports administrators face big decisions about staffing cuts in the next few months.

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Sporting administrators have told The Australian they are concerned about the pressure now placed on athletes heading into Tokyo. “It places unfair pressure on Olympic athletes knowing the future of their sport is on the line,” one said.

In an annual report the AIS announced it was establishing “a pool of strategic projects that will see investment into sports for targeted campaigns or provide project support ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics’’.

An investigation by The Australian has found that sports have been so distraught at the prospective money allocations they were told of this week, that they have made urgent requests for review and re-evaluation.

The AIS has told the sports how much money they will get for just the first six months after the Tokyo Olympics, and the AIS has allowed wriggle room to reward successful sports at the Tokyo Games, but is also poised to cut funding to unsuccessful sports.

AIS chief executive Peter Conde has written to sports saying, “Over the past seven years, high performance grants to sport have increased by 39 per cent (up from $106m to $147m), while over the same period the ASC has reduced staff numbers by 44 per cent.’’

That’s the tenure period of the chairman John Wylie, whose key role was to help bring in more money for sport.

Wylie added:’’ Recent media does not help in achieving our common objectives, and we hope that we don’t look back after the Federal Budget in May and rue the impact of this period.’’

One national sports administrator said his big concern about the AIS funding was the pressure it put on his athletes, who know that their efforts in Tokyo will have huge ramifications for the future direction of the sport. Another said the claims that performance grants have increased was illusory.

“It hasn’t been spent on sports programs, the money is misdirected to … consultants or travel and that doesn't directly impact or helps sports. it only helps the privileged few.’’

Other sports to suffer huge financial cutbacks are taekwondo, table tennis, modern pentathlon, skateboarding, judo, golf, football, equestrian, diving, boxing, basketball, badminton, archery, and athletics. Gymnastics and athletics have argued strongly that their sports may not win Olympic medals but many Olympic champions have been developed through their sports.

Gymnastics for instance provides the foundation for aerial skiers and divers while athletics has been the cornerstone for professional football sports.

Other sports have argued that with extra money to hire skilled coaches their development pathway their sports can once again be in the mix for medals.

Said one experienced coach: "Sports are cyclical. It all goes in cycles and sports on the up will have a bad year while other sports are building and will enjoy success. That’s unless the rug is pulled out from underneath them which is exactly what the AIS is doing.’’

Sports have had to pay for various AIS programs such as the commando course in the multimillion-dollar Gold Medal Ready program, and any administrators that have taken part in more than $7m of leadership training with the Melbourne Business School.

Meanwhile some athletes have sold the “family car” to fund their training. The under-20 athletes going to the world championship in Kenya this July will have to pay $4000 “for their right to represent Australia”. “When you get to the top it is OK, it is nothing to shout about, but getting there, is really, really difficult,” said one elite coach. “The lengths young people go to, going into financial hardship, just getting to be under the noses of selectors is really, really expensive. Sport is becoming a past time for only the rich in this country.”

Some sports are fortunate to have philanthropists such as billionaire Gina Rinehart, who spends millions on swimmers and rowers, directly funding the athlete. Also included in the sports allocations is the athlete wellbeing money, which sports have to spend on wellbeing managers.

One AIS administrator told The Australian that even the top tier of sports that receive the most funding are struggling to pay for the lower level that underpins the future strength of each sport.

But just how much of the money the AIS provides, actually gets filtered down to sport? Around $131m is available for top performance sports – including Paralympics, winter sports and some non-Olympic sports. Some believe much less than half gets spent on core athlete needs like coaching or scholarship support.

Simon Baker, the 1986 Commonwealth Games walk champion, and a four-time Olympian, has been arguing for more transparency on funding.

In 2018 he wrote to the then sports minister Bridget McKenzie saying that taxpayers needed to know their money was going to those that deserve it.

He told the minister: “A simple deconstruction of the NASS (national athlete support structure) funding to athletes and the Athletics Australia budget would conclude much less than half actually gets to athletes who are required to deliver the objectives of the High Performance program.’’

On Tuesday he told The Australian that sports are not well resourced to run the programs that used to be handled by the AIS.

“Compounding the problem the costs of the AIS increased from cost recovery to commercial rates,’’ Baker said. “Rowing ended up renting flats over the road from AIS which worked out cheaper than using AIS.’’