ABSTRACT
The earlier work of the advisory Sports Council, and before that the experience of the Government in assisting some national governing bodies of sport with modest financial assistance for salaries of coaches and international travel costs to major sports events, was sufficient for the newly-structured executive Sports Council to work on when it considered the development of elitism in sport.1 At the other end of the spectrum the work of the CCPR regions, over many years, was equally a good basis on which to construct policies aimed at widening the participation opportunities for the community at large. The growth of facilities in the late sixties and early seventies, allied to the confident predictions in the short and medium terms for continued and expanding growth, represented an encouraging backcloth against which developmental and financial planning could constructively take place. The Royal Charter had made it quite clear that the Sports Council had very precise powers in the field of participation (see Appendix 1, paragraph 2[a]).
