The Optimist wrote:

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Don't know the position now, but a couple of years ago when dealing with the LTA on a different matter, it came up that IHPCs got around 200K and other HPCs around 100K pa to subsidise their performance programmes.  I have no idea how the centres were allowed to spend this, eg did it go on coaches, facilities, fitness provision, travel assistance ??  All I can say is HPCs are generally the most expensive places for juniors to play tennis.  Maybe ranked/older players get a special deal.  

Players who get funded via the matrix system have their funding paid direct to their home HPC.  If the HPC charges a yearly fee, eg Nottingham, the player gets the funding amount deducted from their annual bill.  If it's a centre that charges by the hour, the funding amount is drawn down by the centre and when it is all used up, the player has to pay for further training etc.

An older junior recently told me that her HPC cost 15K pa and that her parents were looking for somewhere cheaper for her.  Don't know if this is the average figure nor whether it was just for the tennis or if other things such as accommodation or education were included.  I suspect just tennis.

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                 I guess that it can be a real problem when the player/family is asked to pay 15K pa for HPC tuition when all along the organisation is                                              actually incompetent and incapable of producing a player!  During all these years of UK Academies and HPCs have we actually produced one decent                       player ?  Not even with the LTA taking the very cream of British junior talent. They fail every one of them without exeption.

               With all these repeated changes both at the NTC and at the academies I would say it looks as if the only way to increase the odds on becoming a                            successful pro is to get away from this negativity that seems to be inherent within our system and to go train with other good players abroad as Andy                      Murray did and does and as Heather Watson does !

why is that harsh Paulsi ?

Have any of the Brits been successful coming from the NTC or any British academy ?

I was trying to outline the problem. Being asked to pay large sums of money to an academy with no chance of any outcome (statistically) could be seen as a con ?

If we are to believe the Tennis hype and that the "new LTA "are certain that they can achieve then maybe the academies should only receive payment as a percentage of the players career earnings.

paulisi wrote:

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It depends on what you call successful and what timescales you are going on.

We have had quite a few girls come through into the top 100 that were home grown. Anne, Bally, Katie OB, Mel etc

The likes of Dan S have improved dramatically since moving to Nottingham. Kyle Edmund etc

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All home grown but not really the product of HPCs.  The girls all came through before the HPC system was put into place. Kyle was trained on a scholarship at Reeds School and then moved straight to the NTC.  Don't know about Dan S. 

There will be drastic funding changes for players with almost immediate effect. The LTA was embarrassed into producing a holding statement following stories in the media regarding the NTC and is still "thinking on its feet" regarding what to do with its current crop of players. I predict that British Tennis will be irreparably damaged by the new regime which will disappear in two years leaving us in complete turmoil. Colin Beecher,the coach who worked with Kyle until recently on his successful transition from juniors , has already been released and replaced by Greg Rusedski, a part-time mentor (£250k per year) who is in it for the money, and James Trotman, whose credentials are yet to be established. I hope Kyle doesn't live to regret his "grass is greener" decision, especially after his recent exit to a player who lost easily to Liam Broady last week. Mr Downey (£300k + 30% bonus) and Mr Brett (£250k) have replaced the much maligned Roger Draper (£650k) who at least had a knowledge and passion about tennis.  Evidently whilst working for Tennis Canada Mr Downey met Roger Federer and afterwards had to ask an assistant who he was. Mr Brett was commissioned to carry out a 60-day review only to receive a high salaried post at the end of it. Surely the review should have been carried out by an independent expert with knowledge of sport in this country, e.g. Sir Dave Brailsford. Mr Brett has little experience of managing within a large and complex organisation. He has an academy in Italy (isn't that a conflict of interest?).

Amongst all the changes and hype we are forgetting the most important people, the players, who will once again be bottom of the pile in terms of treatment and finances. Mr Downey should be careful not to put all his eggs in one or two baskets - Kyle (yet to really prove himself on the world stage), Heather (extremely poor performance at the US Open) and Laura (who is still out injured). Nobody should be averse to change, but there are young players that could be "thrown on the scrap heap", e.g. Luke (19) and Liam (20) to prove a point.

EddietheEagle wrote:

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There appears to be an alarming culture of mega-salaries paid to exalted members of staff at the upper echelons of the LTA. How do they justify the disconnect between lavish salaries paid to HQ staff and the relatively paltry amounts made available for player development?

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Good question. Here's a rather rambling attempt at an answer.

Businesses have one function - to make a profit for their owners and they do this by providing things that people want, at a price that they will pay. Today I bought a very nice custard pie from Greggs for 50p. It made me 50p happier, and since Greggs' net profit margin is about 10%, selling me that pie made the shareholders about 5p richer. 

Because the function of Greggs is to make money for the owners, the company pays its employees as little as it possibly can, bearing in mind the old adage: "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." This exerts a powerful downward pressure on the remuneration of each and every employee, from the 16-year old sale assistant to the CEO - who's on about £500k pa.

Non-profit organisations like the LTA are a different kettle of fish.

Firstly, as Indiana asked, what's it for? And that's a very difficult question to answer. It sees its function as encouraging the playing of tennis at all levels in the UK. One could easily ask the question, why? If people want to play tennis, they will - so why does millions need to be spent on encouraging them? 

Secondly, and this is the point on employee remuneration, there are no shareholders to answer to. The people who set the remuneration are often the employees themselves (the LTA CEO sits on the remuneration committee, fancy that!), answerable to nobody. So knowing what we know about human nature, it's not exactly surprising that their pay appears to be rather more than one might expect for comparable jobs in a business.