Sport England funding: Netball, rugby union and table tennis to get largest grants

Netball received the biggest award as their national team prepare for the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool

Sport England has awarded a further £101m of National Lottery and government funding to the governing bodies of 25 sports, including netball.

The latest investment follows the £88m announced in December for 26 sports to deliver grassroots schemes.

Netball will receive £16.9m, while rugby union, table tennis, tennis and athletics are also beneficiaries.

But the Football Association must wait to find out how much funding it will get over the next four years.

The FA has been allocated £5.6m for its disability and women's development programmes, but a decision on the full award was left pending.

Football's governing body received £30m from Sport England between 2013 and 2017.

Netball has been awarded £13.9m for development and £3m for the national team.

That comes as England's national side, following their Quad series defeats by Australia and New Zealand, begin preparations for the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool.

CEO Joanna Adams said England Netball was "extremely pleased" Sport England had "recognised the work and progress that has been made".

She added: "Sport England's investment will allow us to continue to develop new and exciting initiatives and has also reinforced the importance of maximising the funding model and growing commercial income."

GB Basketball, which had its UK Sport funding withdrawn, received £1m for the national team, with a further £4.7m going to basketball development in England.

Minister for sport Tracey Crouch said: "National governing bodies have an important role to play in strengthening sport at the grassroots, bringing new participants in, keeping people involved by offering a great experience and developing the next generation of talent.

"This investment of over £100m from the government and National Lottery will help boost community sport and have a positive impact on people's lives."

New strategy for Sport England

At first glance, the £189m awarded in two separate waves for the 2017-2021 cycle looks significantly down on the £493m given out for the period covering 2013-2017 - a reduction of 61.7% on the previous cycle, in fact.

However, as with December's funding awards, the decision reflects the new Sport England strategy published in May last year: less focus on the 'sporty' people and more money and resources on tackling the inactive demographic.

Sport England is now asking national governing bodies to target people with a fairly regular sporting habit and will allocate funding to other organisations to tackle inactivity.

In light of this, there has been a shift in focus for the money awarded and some bodies may have asked for less money than they received four years ago.

This means sport's traditional governing bodies are facing average cuts of a third in their Sport England grants, with the bigger, richer sports typically losing even more public subsidy.

Sport England director Phil Smith said: "Every single pound leaving this building depends on the sports meeting the code.

"We are purposely spending less on traditional sport so we can spend more elsewhere."

Sport England, which receives about three quarters of its funding from the lottery with the rest coming from general taxation, will distribute £1bn over the next four years to mass participation sport, with about a third of that going directly to national governing bodies.