Minister counterpunches the crisis talk

For some 10 years now Richard Caborn has been an occasional visitor to Brendan Ingle's gym, an atmospheric boxing emporium that has nurtured champions from Naz to Nelson. As a Sheffield MP it is part of his constituency; as the sports minister he reckons it illustrates one of the principal contributions sport can make to society. It is one of his many hobbyhorses. "There are kids there who would be in the nick if it weren't for Brendan."

No doubt it was observing Ingle's famed tutorials in the noble art which conditioned him to come out fighting last week when we suggested that crisis was not too strong a word to describe the present relationship between sport and his Government. "Crisis? What crisis?" His response echoed that of a rather better-known former parliamentarian. "Where is this crisis? Who says there is one? It certainly isn't the impression I get from people in sport." A financial crisis perhaps, with widespread speculation that the Government is not putting its money where its mouth is and that cuts in Lottery funding will undermine Olympic preparations and may even force some competitors to train overseas?

His counter-punching is crisply delivered. "Let's nail that one. I have said in parliament and I will repeat categorically that we are committed to maintaining funding to élite athletes at least at the same level in the run-up to the Athens Olympics as was provided for the Sydney Olympics preparations.

"Where these stories about 15 per cent cuts come from I don't know. I'm told they emanated from Sport England, but if so they jumped the gun a bit. Yes, there is less money coming in from the Lottery, and therefore into Sport England, but we pledged that funding would be kept at least at the same level as it was for Sydney and that will be honoured.

"It irks me when I hear people say this Government does not care about sport, or take it seriously. I defy anyone to say that we have not invested more money in sport than any previous government. The money that is going through our hands into sport is phenomenal."

He throws figures at you in bewildering cluster-punches to prove it, mentioning the word million more times than Chris Tarrant. He quotes £750m there, £450m here, £130m for this scheme, £102m for that, most directed towards schools, coaching and community projects.

He also points out that only last week UK Sport's budget was increased by £14.1m to help support élite athletes and the drug-testing programme. "We have spent more money on sport than any government in donkey's years."

He talks a good fight, but the cynical might sense there has been some timely spinning of arithmetic to coincide with the sporting soirée given by Tony Blair last week, when a number of high-profile sports figures reckoned to undertake a bit of prime ministerial nose-bloodying over the threat to funding. But, hey presto, it seems there is no threat.

It is exactly a year since I described Caborn in these pages as a sports minister under siege. He was five months into a job he says he never solicited, and has been battling away ever since. Now, whatever anyone else might think, he reckons he is winning that battle.

"What I set out to do is assist more kids to get into sport, to modernise the system and the governing bodies and get more financing in. I am determined to get some co-ordination into sports administration. I want a sensible debate about how we can involve all the agencies involved in running sport, from the sports councils to the sports institutes, the BOA, the governing bodies, the CCPR and the successful sports universities like the Baths, the Loughboroughs and the Sheffields. It is beginning to happen. Instead of fighting each other we've actually got people working together."

Win some, lose some. One of Caborn's losses, and a somewhat embarrassing one, was the early-doors exit of David Moffett, expensively recruited from Australia to be dusty old Sport England's new broom, but seven months into the chief executive's job he has legged it to the Welsh Rugby Union. How did the minister feel about that. "Pissed off. He sat in this office and I said to him, 'What the hell are you doing?' He told me about the Welsh job offer but I said, 'Your job isn't finished here'. But it was clear he had made his mind up. Rugby is his first love, I accept that, but I was extremely angry and disappointed. He said Welsh rugby was in such a mess he just felt he had to go and sort it out."

But wasn't that what he was supposed to be doing at Sport England? "I don't think he got fed up with the job. OK, he got frustrated from time to time, as I do. But I was sorry to see him go."

As he waved Sport England g'day, "Moffo" complained that British sport was like "a convoluted bowl of spaghetti". Caborn agrees. So won't his setting-up of nine regional boards to govern sport increase the fragmentation? No, he says, Regionalisation is actually rationalisation. How come? "Why shouldn't the regions have their sporting needs catered for? They all have different problems and this will take account of that. Community sport will deal with their own regional boards, leaving Sport England's head office to look after the governing bodies. It should simplify things."

Moffett said he had no argument with the Government, unlike his chairman Trevor Brooking who, when he left, blasted them for "not understanding sport" and "letting sports people down". Caborn refutes this, reckoning Brooking was simply peeved that the Government did not have the confidence in Sport England's administration to give it the financial autonomy he felt it should have.

Consequently, the controversial appointment of the government-friendly Patrick Carter as Brooking's successor has been received with widespread scepticism. Caborn says he doesn't understand why. "He knows his way around business, he knows his way around Whitehall and he has proved with his dealings over Picketts Lock, Wembley and the Commonwealth Games that he knows his way around sport. He is a skilled negotiator who will bring great business acumen to the table, which is what I feel Sport England need. If anyone can attract mainstream business investment in sport, he can. Sport England had become so centralised, so top-heavy that it needed sorting out. We have started to modernise things and Carter will build on that."

Modernise? As the firemen would say, that's surely Blair-speak for cuts and his description as a Government trouble-shooter seems a euphemism for numbers cruncher in an organisation that has already lost half its headquarters staff.

Caborn also defends the selection of Alec McGivan, who led the failed 2006 World Cup bid, as the Government's sports director. "What it means is that the DCMS will have a full-time voice on sport, not sharing one with the arts. I think Alec has the skills that are required."

Let's just hope he isn't appointed to lead any London Olympic bid. Which brings us to the most vexed question on the minister's current agenda. To support a bid or not. One gets the impression that he is rather more upbeat about the prospect than his boss, Tessa Jowell, though he professes to be undecided.

He has been on recce to Sydney and this week will be in Athens, then Moscow and Munich. He promises: "If we do go for it, we do go for it wholeheartedly. No messing. All the stops pulled out. It will be a very professional bid. We'll throw everything into it. It won't be like the World Cup. This time if we bid, we'll win. Believe me, nobody will be going along for the ride. We can match anything that any other city has to offer, whether it is New York, Paris, whatever."

Fighting talk again from the man who ran this year's Sheffield half-marathon in a fraction over two hours and completed the Great North Run on his 59th birthday a few weeks ago. He may not have quite the same rapport with competitors as his popular predecessor Kate Hoey but his family were tickled pink when, after meeting him, the sprinter Christian Malcolm described the minister as "cool".

"Please stop bashing me," he pleaded with a grin as we parted. "I am trying, you know." As his friend Ingle will testify, he rides the punches well.