YUSU have released a report indicating the amount of grant money that each sports club receives.
The clubs which receive the highest amount per member, an amount somewhere between £50 and £110, include Octopush, Inline and Ice Hockey, Ben Lairig, Sailing, and Polo.
The clubs which win the most BUCS points for the University, such as UYRFC, receive less per head than these teams.
The top five most popular sports clubs – Badminton, YUSnow, Squash, Athletics, and Hockey – all receive funding from the lowest grant bracket, between £0 and £19.
UYBC social secretary and second year Economics student Sam Agass was disappointed with the findings, stating: “I think it’s outrageous. The biggest sports clubs such as rugby, rowing, football and lacrosse should all receive the most funding. These sports are seen as the most prestigious at York and are the most successful clubs – they should receive the financial biggest backing”.
However York Sport President Sam Asfahani has defended the grant allocations system, claiming that York Sport is “the one part of university that is completely fair”.
“There is no favouritism. Every club is treated exactly the same, and we’re proud of that,” said Asfahani,
He went on to label the grants allocation system as a “precise mathematical formula”, taking into account three factors when deciding clubs’ grants.
“When formulating what a club’s grant allocation will be we take into account membership numbers, income expenditure, and whether the club uses the sports hall or not. Clubs that don’t use the sports hall receive slightly higher grants than they would if they did utilise the sports hall’s facilities.
“We re-jig the formula every year, and we always invite sports clubs to give us feedback.”
High profile clubs such as Football, UYRFC, UYBC and Fencing, a club whose women’s team are one of only two in the University to compete in a Premier BUCS league, all receive grants per member of £30-39 whilst boasting similar membership numbers.
Lacrosse, however, currently only receives an average grant per member of £0-19, despite having similar membership numbers to the clubs above.
The Hockey Club, one of the University’s most consistent deliverers of BUCS points, also receives an average grant per person of £0-19, despite having little over 20 members more than UYRUFC.
Meanwhile the Sailing Club, which belongs to the top bracket of average grant allocations per member of £50-110 and has a recorded 40 members, receives a total annual grant of at least £2000 – more than the total possible grant allocation amount available to the Hockey Club.
The report did not include exact figures for grant allocations.
I do not agree with the way you repeatedly refer to BUCS points, as if that is a fair measure to determine how much grant a club receives. Not every club can compete in BUCS. Nor should funding be allocated depending on how ‘prestigious’ as club is, I personally think enjoyment of the sport is more important; if there are members of a club who regularly attend and enjoy the sport they play, then that club should have adequate funding.
Similarly, just because a club has more members does not mean it will need more funding. Clubs like badminton, for example, make use of the sports hall, and with over 200 members it would be ridiculous to allocate them a budget of more than £19 a member. Similarly with YUSnow, a club with over 400 members. Clubs such as Octopush need funding for travel, and to cover the cost of hiring pool facilities.
I think there is some confusion with the amount of funding each club is getting. Just because a specific club is getting more funding per member, that does not imply it is getting more funding overall. I completely agree with Sam Asfahani, I think the way funding is allocated is very fair.
York Vision, with 50 members, is in the £50-£211 band, the highest band, I’m surprised you didn’t mention that.
No, it does not mean that a society is receiving more funding overall. Though, if membership for a club in a high funding bracket did increase, there is no evidence that the grant received per person would decrease – meaning the more ‘controversial’ clubs could receive more funding overall than other, more generic teams.
Fair point, although that wasn’t made clear in the article. However, I do not think it likely that membership of a club would drastically increase in such a short time, but if it did then yes, I agree that would be an issue that needs to be addressed.
Also, I do not think it very professional to use the name of a club in the title of an article that contains mostly speculation, you are drawing attention to a specific club that is no way proven to be in the wrong.
What is Octopush and Ben Lairig?!
This report is ridiculous, as treasuer of Inline Hockey I can tell you we need every bit of money we can get. At the moment our grant supplies only enough money for just 20 training sessions a year, so members pay for the remaining 10. Those 10 sessions alone probably cost more than the total costs of some clubs for the entire year. On top of this we have to pay for our own transport out to Acomb each week and to Rotherham every fortnight. Because all our grant money goes on training we can’t afford any much needed safety equipment (helmets) or even the basics (skates and stick).
As such each member has to pay for their own kit. This is far more than Football, Rugby or Field Hockey players have to spend. Our skates cost a minimum of £80, but everyone on the team has spent over £200 on theirs to get decent ones. A stick costs between £30-£80 and can break at any moment. A helmet, an essential piece of kit costs at least £50. Add various little pieces like shorts, box, shinpads, elbow pads and chest protector and you’re looking at over £200 minimum for the necessary kit required to play. Due to this the only spare kit we have is second hand kit from current players meaning that beginners get put off from the game due to the lack of decent kit for them, having to pay the transport costs and so we have a dedicated core of players who have spent hundreds, if not thousands on hockey at their time at uni.
If we claimed money for kit so that beginners could play and for transport costs we’d be looking at ridiculous amounts, however we’re lucky that our players don’t mind spending far more than football or rugby players as we love our sport.
There’s a reason “obscure” sports get more money, we are “obscure” because we are expensive sports to play despite receiving a relatively large grant from YUSU. Anyone can afford to play football or rugby or field hockey and so those clubs don’t need as much money from YUSU. Also as pointed above using BUCS points as a measure of a club’s value is stupid and doesn’t encourage people to try new sports which don’t play in BUCS. We play in a University league, why should we be discounted just because it isn’t BUCS?
Oh and another cost I forgot to mention. Matches cost £5 per person, at 18 regional league games, about 6 university league games and 5 cup games a year, plus league registration fees this quickly adds up to a lot.