British Judo are excited to announce that they have been awarded approximately £4.825 million by Sport England for the 2017-2021 cycle.

Sport England has today confirmed the funding for grassroots judo over the next four years. Although it is a figure that represents a decrease from the last period in which the Association was awarded over £6.1m, the Association is delighted with the amount received. The funding received is towards the top-end of the £3.8 – £5.1 million investment range which was a Sport England submission guide for British Judo.

This follows the announcement by UK Sport in December 2016, that British Judo World-Class Performance Programme (WCPP) would receive of just under £10m for the Tokyo 2020 cycle. This highlighted the belief that UK Sport have in the sport and ability of our athletes to deliver medals at future Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In a Sport England press release, Sports Minister Tracey Crouch said: “National Governing Bodies have an important role to play in strengthening sport at the grassroots, bringing new participants in, keeping people involved by offering a great experience and developing the next generation of talent”

In a year of outstanding competition from all sports competing at Rio 2016, the national governing body are now looking forward to building on its previous success. Investments of £1.07 million in the BJA’s Talent programme along with £3.75 million in our Core programmes mean that the Association is well placed to meet challenging participation targets in the next four years.

It was a tough funding round, in which future development plans were closely scrutinised closely by Sport England.

Chairman Ronnie Saez, Chairman of British Judo was thrilled with the announcement:

“I would like to thank Sport England for their continued support and funding through what has been a challenging period for the Association and fellow Sport National Governing Bodies (NGBs). A change in focus in Sport England’s strategy means that they are looking for NGBs to become more self-sustainable and we hope that we can fulfil this objective over the coming years.

“Members of staff have the British Judo Association have worked tirelessly throughout the bidding process and I’d like to thank every single one of them for their hard work and dedication in ensuring that British Judo has a bright future ahead.”

Chief Executive Andrew Scoular said: “We are pleased with the announcement from Sport England. It is great news for the Association and for the long term prospects of attracting more people to take part in judo.”

“The funding secured from Sport England will greatly assist in us focussing on identifying and establishing new and existing programmes to help develop grassroots judo and for the sport to become more self- reliant. The aim will be to provide them with the best experience of the sport along with keeping them engaged throughout their teenage years.”

“We have had some great success at recent Olympics and Paralympics with Sally Conway’s bronze medal at Rio being a highlight of the past 12 months. We hope to continue the medal streak going at Tokyo but the money awarded by Sport England will hopefully allow us to uncover talent in the lower age groups to become future world medallists!”

“In addition, we look forward to the exciting new changes in the Governance of Judo which will enable the sport to be compliant with the New Sports Governance Code”

“I would like to thank the Board for their continued support throughout the process. Their commitment to improving the organisation has made a real difference and we look forward to continuing that work going forward”.