UK Athletics is F*cked

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00:00 - UK Athletics is in Decline
00:35 - Too Many Leadership Changes
02:34 - The 3 Ways UK Athletics Have Been Losing Money
06:23 - Systemic Issues within UK Athletics
06:57 - How All of this Affects the Athletes
07:45 - Things are… turning around?

[AmberFerrariGirl]

Towards the end of Paris 24 Olympics there was a really interesting comment that I found quite shocking... the UK is one of only FOUR countries out of all the modern Olympic and Paralympic member countries (inc. Russia and tiny nations) that DON'T award our medal winners with prizes (cash, houses, land, bonds, other valuable items) when they return home... 1 of only 4 in the entire world... and think of the 3rd world and war-torn countries who still send athletes to the games, yet they support their athletes better than we do.
And yet our football teams can afford to pay their players millions, so can the 6 out of 10 current Formula 1 teams that are based in the UK.
There's some lessons needing to be learned.

[godwindracing]

You forgot that the Commonwealth Games is dying too - 2 years to go and no host

[pinklemonade]

I didn’t realise how little I knew about how the athletics system in the UK was run until now! Very informative vid thank you

[mwezimwezi]

The commercial model is not sustainable because for the most part athletics is a minor sport outside of the Olympic cycle.

[kuramobay]

Excellent report. I didnt know UK Athletics is a private company and that its mandate is so broad. That's crazy. I thought UK Athletics was setup to distribute lottery money to athletes, etc. Athletics as a whole should be under the government with corporate sponsorships, subsidies, etc.

[wilflava]

Brilliant video, the financial situation really is quite embarrassing with only the very tip top athletes getting funding. Jacob Fincham-Dukes just came 5th at the Olympics and has been jumping in and around 8m for years now. After his 5th place on Tuesday 6th August, he went back to his full time job that Friday. If he got proper funding we could have a Long Jump medallist and potentially Rutherford's successor

[cp]

There is loads of money swimming around in athletics from TV rights, sponsorship, lottery funding, etc. If UK Athletics is spending beyond its means then that’s just mismanagement, salaries are too high, or someone is getting backhanders……

[fperacoli]

Here is a theme for a future video. How much money is necessary to mantain a top GB Olympic athlete? I mean, to pay for training, travel, staff, competitions, salary and so on... It wil be nice to compare Athletes from diferent sports: athletics, swimming, cycling.

[alexanderx]

Corporate greed and corruption destroying fun since forever.

[BarronBarca]

The fact that athletes have to go and sell provocative pics and vids on Onlyfans just shows how screwed 95% of athletes are.

[Battismore-Blue]

Proof that nobody is interested in Athletics is the fact BBC cover it, if people wanted to want it Sky would have it . The Hundred is a perfect example of this, more and more games were on BBC because people aren`t interested

[Slider]

Problems started long before 2007 mate. Things were not great under Neils De vos.

The problems started with UK Sport in 1997, with a medal centred approach and their control over the funding meant they became the puppet masters to UKA.

Athletics cannot govern itself anymore.

Tony Minichello had to fight like hell against UKA who were unintentionally trying to throw a spanner in the work for Jess.

Neils de vos even said they should just give all the money for UKA to cycling, as that’s where the medals are. Ignoring that cycling only has 70 countries at the Olympics compared to 180 in athletics.

The national coaching structure was dismantled in 1997, and wha happened since is UKA have been like an apple rotting from the core outwards.

So what success happened under Neils was really just coaches who developed in the 80’s and 90’s carrying onwards.

The business side that you refer to started with Andy Norman in the 70’s who created the international grand prix.

There would be 3 international GP’s, what today would be diamond leagues. Beginning, middle and end of season.

Jo Coates didn’t resign over a safe guarding issue from before she was CEO, she resigned because she was incompetent.

She also lost one of the diamond league events.

[danielebowman]

I think you got things wrong. De Vos was a terrible leader, he inherited a good set-up. In 2012-2013 he got rid of Aviva as sponsorship claiming they'll get a family of sponsors. He failed to get any and begged Sainsburys who sponsored the Paralympics to be a sponsor, in a bad dead for UK Athletics. Basically his successor was fucked, especially as UK athletics gutted wider programs and pathways to success which meant they got less successful after London 2012. The bad management and rot started there, it just didn't yet show in the numbers.

Also UK athletics were screwed over by Boris Johnson's desperate need to make the London Olympic Stadium into a football stadium for West Ham.

[mumblesmoaner]

Most athletes “professional” status isn’t sustainable without govt funding from the lottery without which the athletes couldn’t make a living. Sponsors aren’t coming forward because there’s no return. People generally aren’t interested. All the doping. It’s boring to watch only hyped by overpaid commentators & pundits. Let’s face it more people play bowls that do any jumping or field events. These athletes are basically funded to do a hobby. If UK athletics mission is to get people into sport is wants to take a leaf out of Park Run & forget the elite

[onjadar]

Really Great video sharing some very insightful info into UK athletics. You made a very accurate point about the bbc's use of the bbc iplayer. In our house, we got fed up (literally) by the bbc coverage at this olympics, we often just went to eurosport and discovery plus to watch the events. BBC's coverage on bbc 1 or 2 was mostly people in the studio speaking and recycling footage whereas we were wanting to see the actual raw footage of the events as they were happening. I understand some sports like swimming and cycling took centre stage for bbc 1 and 2, but man, they definitely did not do well enough to promote athletics to the UK viewers. Not sure whether it was a little intentional.

Oh yeah, new sub as well. Great vid.

[rohitnath]

Superb video mate. Perhaps it's worth experimenting with different colours for your text boxes. I admit I don't have any actual issue with it being an all-white background, but I paused and thought that perhaps a colour like dark blue would be better than a white background. Just a thought. It could possibly be more visually appealing to the average viewer. Keep up the good work. The numbers will keep growing!

[Damon]

My theory after watching this video is although we Team GB finished overall 7th in the global medal haul, 14 gold medals as far as I’m concerned is not good enough. Probably the worst turn out since Athens 2004. If what I’ve heard about sexual abuse towards female athletes is true, that is pretty concerning. There has been a lot of athletes regarding track and field or in the pool taking time out of their sport to deal with their mental health. I think the overwhelming success of the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics have put a grave amount of pressure on our athletes to deliver big and that means surpassing 20 golds. Unfortunately now that the rug has been taken from under us by vast management changes, I’m afraid other nations have sussed us out and taken over. You just have to look inside the velodrome which we’ve dominated for donkey’s years and seen what the Dutch have achieved. If Team GB wants to reclaim their medal haul glory in LA in 2028, drastic change needs to happen immediately starting with the track and field. A lot of the old guard are on the verge of retirement or announced their retirement and fresh talent urgently need to be found.

[KenanJHS]

Everything about this video was so clean, from the thumbnail to the editing to the way you structured the video was perfect. You just gained a sub

[beauzest]

Solid piece of sports journalism. Concise and informative. I look forward to watching more.

[alexkidd]

Love the content coming from this channel. Can I make a small suggestion? Maybe look into the compressor/ limiter settings. The tail end of your sentences tend to fade in volume and it's a little difficult to catch sometimes.