UK sport needs independent welfare body, insists British Gymnastics chair

The chair of British Gymnastics has called on the government to establish an independent welfare body to protect athletes across all sports – and to ensure governing bodies no longer face significant costs dealing with safeguarding cases.

In a notable intervention, Mike Darcey said that while the benefits of playing sport were clear, the number of abuse allegations across multiple sports in recent years – including British Cycling, British Swimming, British Bobsleigh and British Athletics – showed the current system often left complainants unhappy and in limbo while they waited for justice.

“It’s time we bit the bullet,” Darcey told the Guardian. “It’s time for the government to accept that it is time for action. We need, as a nation, to show that we care as much about athlete welfare as we do about the medal table.”

Darcey said he envisioned the new body as being like UK Anti-Doping – which would not only include investigators, safeguarding experts and adjudicators but also ensure that best safe sport practice was promoted across British sport.

“Such a body would also have clear economies of scale,” he said. “Instead of asking 40 different Olympic sports to run their own systems we could have one centralised body as a centre of excellence. We would also take the conflict of interest out of the system, and everybody would rightly have much more confidence in the outcome.”

Darcey said that even though British Gymnastics was now spending more than £1m a year on welfare and safeguarding in the wake of the Whyte Review – which found horrifying cases of bullying, abuse and discrimination – it was still struggling to deal with all the 1,326 concerns raised with its welfare and safe sport team since July 2020.

“It’s hard