Sport and austerity in the UK: an insight into Liverpool 2014

The UK’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in 2010, outlined £81 billion of cuts across government departments by 2014/15. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat reform was premised on the ‘Big Society’ making up for their austere cuts to the state. In this piece, we debate the impact of this on sports development, taking the case study of inner city Liverpool. This example is marked because, on the one hand, it presents cuts to municipal sports facilities which are threatened with closure as a result of shrinking local authority budgets, and on the other this role is partially taken on by an offshoot of Everton Football Club (EFC). The points we debate are: 1) is the change in responsibility from the local authority to a private enterprise, staffed by volunteers, a new turn in sport policy?; and 2) what are the consequences of this on grassroots sport participation?