GB Snowsport charges athletes £33k to take part in their programme

A snowHead

The governing body of British Olympic skiing and snowboarding are charging athletes up to £33,500 a year when they become a part of their programme, a Sportsmail investigation can reveal.

Winter Olympics medal hopefuls must sign an agreement with GB Snowsport to become a team member and be able to attend training camps, with most contracts detailing an annual fee which must be paid. The controversial ‘pay to play’ policy appears at odds with the principles of the Olympic charter, which is to encourage ‘sport for all’, including for people of ‘different social and economic conditions’.

At the same time, GB Snowsport directors are earning six-figure salaries, with latest accounts showing two chiefs were paid through consultancy contracts rather than as employees.

Ski Sunday presenter Graham Bell, who skied for Great Britain at five Winter Olympics, told Sportsmail: ‘By making it so expensive, it closes off the potential pathway of many young winter sports athletes. That is a real problem.’

A snowHead

That's absolutely disgraceful.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

If the goal is to become a top-5 (which is, frankly, lunacy - we'd have to displace every other nation up to the USA, Canada, Germany and Norway! The day the UK finished above Austria in winter sports will be the day Austrians burn the country to the ground!) then its a pretty weird way to go about it.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

On the face of it, it's outrageous but it's important to bear in mind that it's in The Daily Mail which has been proven countless times to lie blatantly, repeatedly and on the whole to be an agent for general scumbaggery.

Every time I have seen anything written in the Mail that I personally knew anything about, it was at least factually incorrect and at worst pursuing an entirely fictitious and (IMV) harmful agenda.

It would be nice to find a more trustworthy source of info on this subject.

You'll need to Register first of course.

The figures in the Mail report line up with those in the latest set of accounts filed at Companies House (I havent gone back to 2018) and if true that "Sportsmail has discovered that a third director was paid, alpine director Paul Trayner, who used to have a voluntary role. This omission was described to Sportsmail as an ‘auditing mistake’. "

Then it pretty shoddy account preparation and audit. Its disclosed in the Related Party notes so appears its been left off the Directors rem note maybe just for the number of Directors paid. Its is an area that normally gets a decent amount of scrutiny as many are interested in it, especially for a body getting public funds.

Not a good look at all. The Directors pay, the increase in "admin" expenses (which can cover an expanse of costs), the fall in sponsorship income, and the fact that they are using companies to bill their services to maximise their take home (ie. minimise the tax they pay if they were salaried), then making athletes pay a large fee to be eligible for the Olympics.

Interesting to note that these "‘team membership’ and ‘attendance at training camps’" fees are said to cover " the cost of licences, coaching and coaching equipment, entry to events, lift passes, accommodation and travel." Hard to imagine its the same cost for all athletes so some are subsidising others?

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I have no idea whether the Mail is correct on athletes having to pay to join a GB Snowsport training program to be eligible for the Olympics.

I know of alpine racers opting to pay for independent programmes or to train with commercial groups in the past, they were still counted as British Team members though.

After all it is free

Having just seen Jamie Nicholls state he cant afford to attend another Olympics, I suspect there's a lot of truth to it, and if so utterly shameful

yes - saw Jamies post this morning. He does say that he has other issues which means he'll not be going to 2022, but certainally makes it clear that the endless rounds of fundraising for subs to SSGB pretty crippling.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

How is GB Snowsport funded?

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

Agree that it isn't right for the leadership team to be taking 6-figure salaries/payments if they are not delivering. (Be that sponsorship or whatever their role is).

But there is rarely enough money in amateur sport to 100% fund all aspiring athletes. GB Snowsport are getting from UK Sport £11m over 4 years (for the non-para side), but with now so many disciplines that probably has to cover around 50 athletes - an average of £50,000 pa per head. To cover food, accommodation, travel, entry fees, licences, training camps, support staff, medical, equipment etc etc.

I suspect the alpine programme may cost more than others, perhaps nearer £100,000 pa per head which would mean GBS putting in around £66,500. So they have an uncomfortable choice: ask athletes to contribute one-third of the cost, or drop one-third of the squad. Sad

@ecureuil, Alpine racing at the Olympics has national quotas plus the technical events have got big enough to need a qualifying race before the medal event. I would expect slightly more alpine athletes to go to the next Olympics than the recent World Championships but not all that many.

I stopped commenting on the "Why don't we pay Daniel Yule to race for GBR" thread as I didn't have recent info on the funding situation.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Seems the US ski program also bills their B and C team athletes for travel expenses

https://www.denverpost.com/2016/01/09/grooming-talent-takes-a-mountain-of-money-for-u-s-ski-team/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Ski%20Team%20has,of%20more%20than%20%24100%2C000%20each.

A snowHead

A snowHead

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-9348165/Furious-GB-skiers-demand-answers-funding-scandal-revealed-Sportsmail.html

The follow up article from the original Daily Mail article

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Interesting to read this. I interviewed Martin Bell for the podcast last week. He told me he felt racers were better resourced in his day and that he's just received a bill from GB Snowsports for the spell that his daughter, Reece, spend in Europe recently with the team.

Listen here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7822922-a-ski-podcast-special-martin-bell-downhill-racer

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Pushing IR35 to one side - 89k a year to run Team Snowsports GB isn't that outrageous. That's if it's a full-time position and not 1 day a month.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

It's an interesting story, but Jeez, those pages on the Daily Mail online are hard to negotiate - there is so much crap on the page that has nothing to do with the story

You'll need to Register first of course.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I remember reading a similar story a few years ago.

Picture a typical, well off, middle class family of four standing outside their large detached house, complete with very expensive cars parked on the block paved driveway in front of a triple garage. Mum and dad both looked really sad, with the corners of their mouths turned down and their foreheads deeply furrowed. Their problem was that their son was an aspiring ski racer and they were being asked to pay towards his development.

Life can be so, so cruel.

Help!!

GB Snowsport charges athletes £33k to take part in their programme

snowHeads Forum Index >>> snowSports