GB Badminton: No formal appeal against UK Sport funding cut

Chris Langridge and Marcus Ellis won men's doubles bronze at Rio but badminton saw its funding cut by UK Sport

GB Badminton will not launch a formal appeal against UK Sport's decision to axe all its funding before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The sport made "representations" to UK Sport last month in an attempt to overturn its initial verdict, but failed to reverse the decision.

Badminton England chief executive Adrian Christy says half of the 24-strong squad will now have to leave.

"We will never agree with the decision," Christy told BBC Sport.

"We think it's wrong, but we are moving on."

Christy said the organisation is about £1.25m per year short compared with the run-up to the Rio 2016 Games, meaning players will be forced to leave the programme over the coming weeks.

He added: "Various staff may also have to leave the organisation and that's really, really difficult to deal with, but we will come back stronger."

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Badminton received around £5.5m between London 2012 and 2016 but had all future funding pulled despite beating their UK Sport-set Rio Games target by claiming an Olympic medal as Chris Langridge and Marcus Ellis won men's doubles bronze.

A formal appeal to the "sport resolutions panel" could only be made if GB Badminton felt UK Sport had not followed its official rules and regulations in order to reach the Tokyo 2020 funding decision.

Although "extremely disappointed" with the outcome, Christy admits he was "not surprised" UK Sport did not reverse its initial funding decision and accepts it did follow its own procedures correctly when reaching the conclusion.

"We can't hold on to something that's never going to happen, so now we're focusing on how we can recover, how we build our commercial programme and be resilient enough to bounce back," he said.

Badminton England plans to launch a funding campaign in the coming weeks to help raise an annual figure of around £600,000.

It believes that would enable it to continue supporting elite players like Ellis and Langridge, as well as Commonwealth champions Chris and Gabby Adcock, while also allow investment in some of its young talent.