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An Open Letter to Sue Campbell, Chair of UK Sport From John Bicourt who competed at the 1972 Munich, and 1976 Montreal Olympic and was the first Athletes Agent in the UK.
Dear Sue,
I noted a statement from you at the recent DMCS enquiry where you said "it takes 8 years from identification of talent to Olympic rostrum." Well on that basis who have UKA produced in their 8 years and why have they been given £45m of public money to do so? With great respect, regardless of what you and others at government level believe, those charged to deliver the sport will continue to fail because they are simply not capable (as proved by the last eight years) It is nothing to do with society and alternatives it is everything to do with expertise: real definable expertise and experience and not those employed on the basis of public recognition, face fitting and good management speak. You and Sport England have been accepting appointments at the highest managerial level without proven substance of the intended incumbents. Worse, you continue to allow the retention of clearly incompetent personnel. I am afraid that you will be answerable in the end. We have a Commonwealth Games coming in March at around the same time a World Cross Country Championships. Neither is promising for England and GB. Beijing is not far away and the statisticians are predicting another disaster. How long do you think the public and the media will believe the pathetic hype surrounding our sport? Any decent 6th former could show you the inefficiencies and waste that you appear to condone. It does not take a John Harvey-Jones! Just look at the half brained concept of Development that UK have, splitting it up in to various independent sectors. They think it’s mainly about getting more youngsters into the sport: Development is all encompassing. It is about everything that needs to happen to improve the sport. It is all inclusive. You cannot leave any one element out. All elements are inextricably connected. UKA had a Development Director from the beginning. Ask him what he achieved? (or what he achieved at the LTA?) In fact the most useful exercise you could initiate would be to have each managerial incumbent at UKA list their specific and actual achievements in terms of performance. Not what new initiatives or schemes or policies they implemented but what they actually achieved (as in results) that has improved participation, standards or medal haul. The answers, I am afraid, would be entirely negative. None of the three areas have improved in the last eight years. So you need to do something more than have an unrealistic wistful belief that things will get better. They won’t as long as you allow their caravan to roll along! Foster was wrong and you must know it. The oft quoted "squabbling and arguing" that Foster and the like claim is the problem preventing the sport from achieving what it could is clearly incorrect. Spin has determined that justified criticism and challenge to "authority" should be dismissed as no more than that- arguing and squabbling. Could we imagine that HM Government levels the same accusations at HM Opposition? Those in the sport, and I mean the majority, are fed up with this useless Administration. How can anybody "stand behind" "forget the past" and "move on" that UKA exhorts us to do just because they say so? The idea that modernisation is the way forward is entirely correct. It’s just that Foster’s idea of it does not coincide with others. Modernisation is something that should evolve based on sound business practice and proven past experience. At things currently stand the sport will be in chaos within the year and heads will inevitably roll! Regards,
John Bicourt
Email: johnbicourt@onetel.com
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