Water polo's 2012 hopes teeter on the brink

GREAT Britain water polo officials will travel to London on Friday to meet with UK Sport as their future hangs in the balance.

_{FUTURE DOUBT: GB men's captain Craig Figes fears the worst for water polo in UK (Getty Images)}

Next Tuesday was scheduled to be GB's first match in the men's World League against Montenegro but funding cuts in December have led to withdrawal from the competition.

Following UK Sport's short-fall of £50m in the distribution of wealth among the Olympic sports, water polo was one of nine to be overlooked, leaving a question mark hanging over the future of the sport.

Initial fears of cuts of ten per cent were viewed as disastrous but with the unlucky nine left to feed off £12m, the damage is expected to be a great deal more - threatening the future of the centralised performance centre in Manchester.

And Craig Figes, captain of the men's team, believes the entire Great Britain squad will be left high and dry when UK Sport allocate the remaining funding on January 29 - bringing to an end their London 2012 hopes.

"There's lot of guys in debt, with contracts on accommodation they won't be able to afford and little chance of finding work in the present climate," said Figes, who gave up a professional contract in Spain to relocate to Manchester in 2006.

"At my age, I probably wouldn't have still been around in 2012 but, if this squad had been able to keep training as hard as it has until then, it would have done a decent job.

"Everybody's under huge stress. We heard about the funding problem a while ago and expected 10-15 per cent in cuts. But now, even if we get an even slice of what's left, it will be a 70 per cent cut and that won't even fund the hire of training pools.

"Several young players will get offered professional contracts in Europe but it's hypocritical to expect other countries to finance our Olympic preparations.

"Even if we got money, we'll have lost a year. It'll be like we have to start all over again. You can't do that so close to the Olympics."

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And it is not only the men's squad who are treading water with the women also absent from the World League.

While 2012 hopefuls Fiona McCann and captain Fran Leighton have embarked on a quest for private-sector sponsorship, the future looks just as bleak for the GB girls.

"At the moment it is much better known in East European and Mediterranean countries than here," said Leighton.

"We aim to change that by bringing the sport to the attention of as many people as possible.

"But when you have to get up at half past five and then go to work after training and then train again at night, you start to think to yourself, ‘what am I training for?'

"Of course we want to make it London 2012 but we don't want to get there and be embarrassed because we're not good enough, we want to be there to compete."

GERARD MEAGHER