A £2.6 million funding boost from the organisers of London 2012 is set to improve the medal chances of Britain’s Paralympians at the next four Paralympic Games.
The London 2012 organising committee LOCOG announced this week that it was handing about £8 million to the British Paralympic Association (BPA) and the British Olympic Association (BOA).
The announcement came as LOCOG published its final report and accounts, and prepared for its own “voluntary liquidation”.
Thanks to an agreement reached seven years ago, LOCOG will pay the British Paralympic Association (BPA) £2.6 million – as a result of revenue raised through licensing and sponsorship using the ParalympicsGB brand – and give £5.3 million to the British Olympic Association.
The money is being seen as a “bonus” by BPA, as there had been no guarantee that LOCOG would raise enough revenue to trigger a payment.
Tim Reddish, BPA’s chair and himself a retired gold medal-winning Paralympian, said in a statement: “The money announced today will be used by the BPA to support both its mission of making the UK the leading nation in Paralympic sport and our vision of ‘through sport, inspiring a better world for disabled people’.”
And he congratulated LOCOG for “doing such a fantastic job to maximise revenues from sponsorship and licensing”.
He added: “They have worked with our brand over the past seven years and have returned it to our sole charge bigger, stronger and with many more people aware of its value.”
A BPA spokeswoman said: “It is too early to say how the money will be spent. It is going to be spent over a wide time frame but we haven’t allocated those funds yet.”
But she said some of the money was likely to be spent over the next seven years in preparation for both the next two summer games, in Rio and the 2020 Paralympics, and the next two winter games, in Sochi and Pyeongchang, South Korea.
LOCOG also revealed that – during its eight-year lifespan – it secured revenues of £2.41 billion and incurred costs of £2.38 billion.
LOCOG will pay about £20 million to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and donate £1 million to International Inspiration, a partnership between the British Council, UK Sport and UNICEF that aims to use the “inspirational power of sport to enrich the lives of children and young people across the globe”.
It will also donate £300,000 to the Join In Trust, which encourages people to volunteer at sports clubs and community groups around the UK.
