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Touchline issue 23 | April 2016 | 11
T
able tennis is the most popular racquet sport in
the world and ranked second overall in terms of
participation with over 10 million players competing in
sanctioned tournaments each year. At the elite level,
the sport is dominated by China; a country where
it has a major and passionate following. However,
despite a high level of participation the sport does not
generally have the same profile in the West. Touchline
spoke to Sara Sutcliffe, Chief Executive Officer of Table
Tennis England, to find out what was being done to increase
the profile of table tennis and whether English players had
a chance of breaking the Chinese supremacy any time soon.
How did you become involved in sports administration?
Sport has always played a big part in my life. I was good enough
at it to be picked for school teams and even the county on
occasion but I was never a sporting superstar. Growing up in
New Zealand meant that sport and physical activity was just
part of life. So when as a junior lawyer I spotted the opportunity
to go in-house as the Legal Director at the British Olympic
Association I applied, and it changed the direction of my career.
I spent 12 years at the BOA, with the opportunity to be part of
Team GB at four Olympic Games, being part of the London 2012
bid team and being there when the curtain came down on those
magnificent Games four years ago. But by then I decided that I
wanted to remain in sports administration rather than being a
lawyer and took the opportunity six months later to take up the
position of Interim Chief Executive Officer (which subsequently
became permanent) of Table Tennis England. I also felt I had
skills to offer other Boards and took up two positions as Non
Executive Director on GB Taekwondo and British Gymnastics.
Are the sports administration issues that you encounter
similar across the organisations that you have been
involved with? What are the main issues?
Most sports bodies have had to tackle governance issues in the
last few years, especially in the UK where the funding agencies,
UK Sport and Sport England, have made it part of their funding
criteria. For decades National Governing Bodies have been
largely run by dedicated and hard working volunteer structures
with a skeleton of paid staff. The arrival of public funding
changed that and over time the governance structures of NGBs
has had to adapt to becomes more ‘business-like’ whilst not
losing the knowledge and commitment of the volunteer base.
One of the other big challenges facing Governing Bodies is being
clear on their purpose. The Government strategy is changing
to one of wider physical activity with outcomes ranging from
participation to social values – rather than supporting sport for
sports sake. That is a challenge for NGBs who traditionally have
focussed on supporting and growing their core regulated sport;
we are not experts in social change for example. But by working
in partnership with other organisations whose main focus is
health, social inclusion and community engagement we can
provide the ‘products’ to help deliver the wider strategic aims,
without ever losing sight of what our core membership require
us to deliver for them.
FEATURE INTERVIEW
W I T H S A R A S U T C L I F F E , C E O
O F T A B L E T E N N I S E N G L A N D