Originally Posted by rugbymatt

A few years ago Northern Rock, through no fault of the British public went bust, the government bailed them out. Then RBS went bust, we bailed them out, then Barclays, we bailed them out. Bank after bank, company after company went bust, we bailed them out, and they went bust through very little fault of the British public and we, as a people became cynical, depressed and miserable. The London Olympics had billions spent on it, our sportsmen and women got paid money to dedicate their lives and commit themselves to a life of pain, denial and at times real physical hardship and the resulting Olympics gives the country a boost, fills many, if not all, with a renewed sense of National pride without it being labelled as some right wind BNP symbol, we, in Britain realised we're not actually rubbish at organising the worlds biggest event, if we can do that, we can pretty much do anything, and.... and this is really important. The British people realised that despite the Media hell we normally live in we do actually live in a pretty good part of the world and for me, thats money well spent, it certainly made me much happier than bailing the bankers out.

Want to look for a scandal? Try asking where a good percentage of the bail out money went. I know for an absolute fact that not all of it went to pay off the debts, I know for a fact that some of it went to line some peoples pockets and they are far greater figures than the funding for athletes.

Originally Posted by Kapri

The majority of funding came from the National lottery and this is known by just about everyone.

Originally Posted by Wendee

That was just part of it. I'm talking about the 'other' funding.

Originally Posted by chris955

Exactly the same as any other country that uses tax payer money

Originally Posted by chris955

Cant say it bothers me.

Originally Posted by Wendee

It should as you'll be paying the bills, and for quite some time, as we all will be.

Originally Posted by mel39

125 million pounds a year, one third of which is direct government funding.

That equates to less than 1 joint strike fighter or half the fine Barclays incurred for the Libor fixing. A bargain I think!

Unless you have other figures/access to government accounts that show something else?

Originally Posted by mel39

125 million pounds a year, one third of which is direct government funding.

That equates to less than 1 joint strike fighter or half the fine Barclays incurred for the Libor fixing. A bargain I think!

Unless you have other figures/access to government accounts that show something else?

Originally Posted by Wendee

Now that would be telling. Have a think about how nearly every aspect of British sport as seen at the Olympics is either coached, run by high performance specialists, sports scientists, even sports psychologists from Australia since about '97?

Originally Posted by chris955

It is ? Countries 'swap' these people all the time. I fail to see where you are going with this ?

Originally Posted by chris955

Most of those people I heard interviewed during the Olympics seemed to be British but I'm not privy to your inside information