If proof were needed of the greyhound industry’s commitment to welfare, you need look no further than the table below showing that that particular sector now accounts for 51% of the funding that it grants to the Greyhound Board of Great Britain. That is the stand-out story from the freshly published 2018/2019 BGRF Annual Report & Accounts writes Floyd Amphlett.
While 2018 income to the Fund was down to £6.95m from £7.4m (6%), the directors gave the piggy bank a shaking and allocated £7.6m. The signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding with the bookmakers has seen the Fund anticipate a 2019 income of £8m and welfare has been the biggest winner with over £4m put aside. That sees its percentage of the cake rise to 51% from 41.4%.
Prize money is the biggest casualty dropping to 23.5% of the budget from 31.6% though due to the increased income, the net loss is only in the region of £26K. Grants to tracks fell to a total of £46K, of which the biggest was to Romford at the maximum available of £10K, for track replacement.
So how about a longer term view of funding?
We looked back in the archives to the BGRF budget of 2010/11. Some items were calculated differently back then, but total income was £7.8m of which 1.97m (26%) went to prize money. 36% went to welfare, 15% on integrity services and £496K (5.3%) to track grants with over £1,058,500 (15%) allocated to “commercial marketing & misc.”
