Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

94 A poisoned chalice? Some good news arrived when Ken Rickhuss was able to inform the Council on 7 th June that the Sports Council, on behalf of the National Lottery, had agreed to fund coaching and athlete development to the extent of £2.5 million annually. However, because of the fears surrounding the BAF’s financial situation, the Sports Council insisted that the funds be managed at arm’s length from the federation’s main business in order to protect them should the BAF get into real difficulties. Creating an acceptable structure to meet these conditions delayed the payment of funds and this further complicated the federation’s cash flow problems. The Officers, now including the new treasurer, Midlander Keith Atkins, who had been formally appointed at the Council meeting on 7 th June, searched for ways out of their predicament but the inescapable fact was that the federation was running short of cash. The possibility of raising a loan and/or persuading Channel 4 to pay part of the rights fee for 1998 in advance came to nothing and an appeal to the AAA of England (with reserves of around £1.5 million) for help was refused. But, amidst all this chaos, a search for another chief executive continued and, in July, David Moorcroft was appointed; to take up his position on 1 st October 1997. On 14 th October 1997, two weeks after Moorcroft’s appointment to the hot seat, the management board decided that it could not carry on and BAF was placed into administration. Whether such a fateful step was actually necessary must be in doubt. Following the resignation of Steve Gledhill in January 1997 and the absences of Honorary Treasurer Evanson, Keith Atkins was probably brought on to the scene too late for him to fully get to grips with the complexities of the business and it is understandable that the snapshot of the financial situation he produced seemed to point in only one direction. If it was true that the BAF had gone into deficit, the final decline was even more precipitous than generally portrayed. Only two years before, at the close of the financial year on 30 September 1995 (the last one for which I was responsible), the published reserves were £1,089,000 but this figure did not include a further approximately £1 million of “hidden reserves” as a result of the prudent accounting policies that had been adopted over a number of years. In addition, the British Athletic Foundation, which was in effect an arm of the BAF, had reserves of over £600,000 and which were available to shelter some of the BAF’s