Brooking wary of successor's political background

Trevor Brooking, who left his position as chairman of Sport England earlier this year, sounded a warning yesterday about the challenge facing his successor Patrick Carter, who has acted recently as a Government troubleshooter on three major projects: Wembley, Picketts Lock and the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

Carter, a businessman, has earned a reputation as a hard-headed financial operator. He recommended that the Picketts Lock project to host the 2005 World Athletics Championships was unviable, but he also lobbied for an extra £105m of funding to enable the Commonwealth Games to go ahead smoothly.

Brooking, who left his post expressing frustration about the Government's basic lack of understanding about sport, described the appointment, diplomatically, as "intriguing", admitting that he had been surprised to see the Government insider installed in an organisation that has previously been keen to represent itself as a relatively independent quango.

There are now two schools of thought on Carter's installation. Will he be there merely to tighten the Government's pursestrings, or will his experience and political know-how mean that when he speaks up for the sport he will be more readily listened to? "That is the absolutely key question," Brooking said. "There will be some apprehension within sport, because Patrick is not from a sporting background. I'm hoping his appointment is an indication that the Government wants to invest significantly in sport and they prefer to deal with a pair of hands they've dealt with before.

"Patrick could be the operator to deliver what sport needs. But he could be there for the wrong reasons, which would mean there is no one to fight the corner when the cuts are made. Whether that's the basis on which he's taken the job we can only judge in a few months." The official news came on a day when UK Sport announced that £9.4m of Exchequer money was to be made available to élite performers over two years, between 2004 and 2006, to build on the successes of the last Olympics and Paralympics.

Sport England no longer deals with the élite end of the World-Class Performance programme, but its funding of the next two tiers down is being badly affected by decreasing Lottery money following the fall in ticket sales– a problem that Carter will need to address.