It’s taken me quite a while to get my head round this, so I thought I’d share it with you all. Sports are organised quite differently in the UK depending on a few things: the cohesion between the elite and grassroots parts, team or individual, olympic or not, professional or amateur heritage etc. etc.
History
Athletics was historically an amateur sport at all levels and that heritage still permeates through the sport today, even though at elite levels there are now funded athletes that are able to train and compete full-time as well as a few who make a decent living. It’s a long way from the riches in football! Football, and to lesser extent other team sports like rugby and cricket benefit from the national ‘pyramid’ arrangement of teams with full professional ranks at the top. Talent can bubble up through the ranks and money can trickle down, with coaches and officials often receiving payments at all levels. Contrast that to athletics where pretty much all coaches and officials are volunteers.
Structure
A pyramid structure seems to simplify the governance. Think of football and you think of The FA. Think of Rugby and it’s the RFU; Cricket – the ECB. Think of amateur sports and things can get a little more involved. British Cycling and British Triathlon, being individual sports have slightly different structures but seem to be simpler than our sport with just a national body or federation then lots of member clubs and individuals. When it comes to Athletics it gets a bit more involved: There are counties and regions and areas and councils and elite and non-elite… Probably the best way of explaining is to start with a picture:
Pyramid? Not quite.
Clear? Probably not! Well let’s start with our club – Maidenhead AC (that stands for Athletic Club by the way). We affiliate to England Athletics as do a lot of athletics and running clubs, but not all. There’s no requirement to do so (but there are a lot of benefits) and there are some alternatives, depending on what type of club they are, whether they compete or just run for fun and what disciplines they take part in.
England Athletics (EA) is one of the Home County Athletic Federations (HCAFs) of UK Athletics (UKA), along with Scottish Athletics, Welsh Athletics and Athletics Northern Ireland. Together, they develop and deliver the UK strategy for our sport. UKA in turn is our national governing body and a member of World Athletics (formerly the IAAF). World Athletics sets the international rules and governs international elite competition. UKA sets the rules for competition in the UK (which adopt all IAAF rules and adds some specific to the UK). Confusingly, UKA also operates under the consumer brand of British Athletics when representing elite athletes, competition, events, tickets and fans.
Club, Area, Region…
So that’s the straight(ish) line from club to Home Country, National and International governance. Now we look more local again. Maidenhead AC, along with 14 other clubs pay an affiliation to Berkshire Athletics, who administer athletics in the Unitary Authority areas of what used to be Berkshire. It organises County Championships and inter-county events, selects County teams for national, regional and inter-county competitions whilst also providing provision for officials. We are also members of the South of England Athletics Association or SEAA which covers Berkshire and 18 other counties in, unsurprisingly, the south of England – from Cornwall to Norfolk. Like Berkshire Athletics, the SEAA is a competition organiser but this time at a regional or ‘Area’ level. Some competitions are for individuals and clubs in the Area, others are ‘Inter County’, contested by representative teams from each county. Pretty much any County, Area or National competition or championship across any discipline (Track & Field, Road or Fell Running, Cross Country and, for juniors, Sporthall) requires that competitors are ‘licensed’ – e.g. registered athletes for one of the HCAFs of UKA (e.g. England Athletics).
There are also national and regional councils. I don’t know much about them except they are supposed to be the voice of the local clubs and volunteers feeding up to national board level. In typical form, the regions are different to the competition regions so we’re in the South-East Regional Council for this one. One of our members (Tom Easten) sits on that council. Hopefully I’ll get him to write a summary or do a podcast to explain what it’s all about.
Funding
Funding for Athletics comes from three sources:
- Sponsorship – the lions share of this is directed towards elite competitions and athletes although some makes its way to grass roots.
- Funding – e.g. Lottery & Parliamentary funding. Again, the vast majority of this funds the elite end of the sport, allowing those on the Podium or Potential lists to train and compete full time. Sport England is the governor of grass roots sport funding, while UK Sport does the same for High Performance (elite) sport; both under the direction of the Government’s Department of Culture, Media & Sport.
- Club Affiliation and Athlete Registration fees. These are paid by clubs like us and athletes like you and Mo Farah.
The organisation from which we, as a club (and in turn you as an athlete & member of this club) benefit, is England Athletics. Representing c185,000 registered athletes and runners in c1,800 clubs and member bodies*, in 2019-20, their total income was a mere £7.9m, with 39% coming from Club Membership & Athlete Registration fees. 32% came from Sport England (c£2.5m) and is planned to reduce year on year. Compare that with the c£31m awarded across Athletics and Para-Athletics in the next Olympic cycle. This will fund the 67 or so athletes plus 42 or so para-athletes on the Olympic programmes including a lot of their support services through the English Institute of Sport.
* These numbers all fell dramatically in 2020-21 due to Covid-19.
Governance
Finally to governance. We’ve talked about who sets the technical rules for competition (UKA). Well they also set out governance in a number of areas including licensing for coaches, competitions, officials and tracks, welfare and safeguarding, anti-doping and broadcasted events. They also provide insurance for clubs like ours, covering coaches, officials, members, activities and events – on the condition that we follow their guidance and adopt appropriate health & safety provision.
England Athletics, as mentioned above, help to develop and deliver the strategy for the sport. In addition, as the membership and development body for the sport in England, they lead on support for grassroots athletics and running clubs, facilities and schools, affiliation and membership, domestic competition opportunities at area, county, national and international [England] level. They also manage the recruitment, training and retention of coaches, officials, and leaders, volunteering, participation and the development of talent pathways for athletes through to the Commonwealth Games.
During the Covid pandemic, a lot of the constantly changing guidance came down through England Athletics which in turn followed the Sport England Return to Play framework. This was attempting to provide a uniform application of the rules set out by government across all sports, directed by DCMS and the Department for Education. This is what led to the confusing term of ‘Team Sports’ constantly used by Boris and the media, when what they meant was ‘Organised Sports’. While the relative uniformity was useful, the term ‘Team Sports’ did lead to a lot of misunderstanding by the public and even the police. On one occasion during one of the lockdowns, a Sunday run briefing was being conducted outside the clubhouse to a group of 12 members (in line with all the guidance in force at the time) and they were approached by 2 PCSOs who told them they were breaking the rules and needed to disperse immediately. They had completely ignored the football and rugby training going on at Braywick. Luckily, one of our routemasters was on hand to explain that we are every bit an organised sport as the ball-chasers, and scared them away with an offer to show them our Covid-19 protocols on the website!
So there you go… Hopefully that’s as clear as mud! If you’ve got any questions, fire away. If you have some insight from other sports be it Swimming, Hockey or Competitive Origami, then let us know how it compares.