Table Tennis in the UK
Forty–Two
Introduction
This paper is to discuss how table tennis in England and the UK can be moved forward to provide:
- Value for money for members
- Value for money for funding agencies and commercial sponsors.
- A structure that enables the most effective use of skills for personnel and external parties
- A tournament structure that is fit for purpose – development of talent and competition
- A ranking system that works for as many people as possible
- A calendar that maximises talent development
- Effective communication channels
Obviously, this represents my view and perspective, which I hope is sufficiently “big picture” but based on ground level knowledge gained by personal experience.
Whilst the current position is described rather negatively, I hope that my suggestions will have sufficient merit.
In my opinion. Table Tennis in England needs to move towards:
- a more prominent position in world table tennis
- a joined-up structure for the game to flourish domestically
- to ensure that all players have the opportunity to play table tennis
- at the right level
- wherever they live
- to enable their enjoyment
- or should they so wish to develop their skills towards competing at the highest levels.
Current Position
In 2022, we find ourselves at a point where there is a disconnect between the Membership and the National Governing Body. This has been built up over the years by the sport being run by people who are:
- Incompetent
- Lacking knowledge
- Lacking honesty
- Arrogant
- Unwilling to listen to the Membership
- Unwilling to be accountable for their decisions and actions
The Code for Sport Governance was introduced in 2017 and recently updated by UK Sport and Sport England. It is a well-meaning document and contains many points that should guide National Governing Bodies to good practice and governance and is used as the measurement for the management of Sports to give UK Sport and Sport England confidence that the grants paid to the NGBs will be applied in accordance with the objectives of the UK Sport and Sport England.
Unfortunately, the Government has not previously set up a Sports Regulator and therefore any enforcement for bad practices is in the form of withdrawal of grant monies. There has been no means of enforcement against individuals and therefore sports are often not run as effectively as they should be.
However, there has been a recent announcement of the introduction of Sport Integrity. https://www.uksport.gov.uk/news/2022/04/07/sport-integrity-a-new-independent-disclosure-and-complaints-service It is unclear what the scope of responsibility of Sport Integrity will be and whether it will have the resources or be equipped to deal with the issues that we have encountered in Table Tennis England.
At the moment, within Table Tennis England, nothing is joined up. Every aspect runs by itself with very few natural links to make any aspect work with any other.
- The competition schedule does not work for the performance players. Not fit for purpose.
- The calendar is too congested.
- Grand prix events are expensive to enter but still make losses
- The ranking system could be improved.
- The performance is split away from the rest of the coaching that goes on around the country.
- Top players go abroad to get competition and training.
- Too many young people stop playing the sport for various reasons.
- The local leagues run autonomously.
- Activity by counties and regions is patchy
- The Governance of the sport is poor.
- Communication is not transparent.
- The staff of TTE are not accountable for their actions.
- A lot of grant money is given to organisations that are not affiliated. Often at the expense of affiliated entities.
GBTT has been set up, but the structure and application of the entity is unclear. There is now an advert for the Chair of GBTT.
GBTT has been set up, but the structure and application of the entity is unclear. There is now an advert for the Chair of GBTT.
GBTT
This is text taken from the advert for the Chair of GBTT
As part of its £352 million investment into the Paris 2024 cycle, and in recognition of the exciting long-term medal potential of our sport, UK Sport awarded £1.35 million to Great Britain Table Tennis (GBTT). This investment is aimed at supporting new sports to uncover champions of tomorrow, as part of a 12-year approach to delivering success, and will allow us to grow and develop our rising stars.
GBTT is the body responsible for the GB Performance Programme (GBPP) and for nominating athletes for the participation of British table tennis athletes in the Olympic Games, and all other events or tournaments involving athletes selected to represent GB. This includes arranging all necessary assistance and support for the preparation, selection and performance of these athletes. GBTT is a member of the British Olympic Association.
Through a separate Lead Home Nation Contract, GBTT has agreed to appoint Table Tennis England to lead the operational delivery of the GBPP.
Table Tennis England, Table Tennis Scotland, the Ulster Branch of Table Tennis Ireland and Table Tennis Wales are the Company Members and there are up to four Independent Directors, including the Chair. This appointment represents the beginning of a new, enhanced structure and governance, and an exciting time to join us.
The name GBTT is technically incorrect for the name of this organisation. Great Britain comprises of England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would be correct. Therefore, this entity should be called UKTT.
Of course, it may revert to GBTT if Ireland reunifies in the future.
This entity seems only to be looking to deal with performance for players towards the Olympic Games. This is a lot of money to be put into getting a Nil Return. The chances of any medals from the Olympics are minimal as we cannot compete with the Chinese and other Asian countries as well as several European countries.
Perhaps we need to prepare some mile posts along the way. Success in Europe or the Commonwealth games would be more attainable targets towards Olympic success.
But this is once again dealing with issues in silos. International performance is reliant primarily on the development of players through the domestic events system and even back to the clubs where players start learning to play.
The whole structure needs to be reviewed.
We need to be careful when looking at the joining of our associations, for any reason, that we maintain the identity of the individual nations for two reasons,
- Our nations compete separately in Europe and in the Commonwealth events. The Olympic Games for two weeks every four years, is the only time they compete under one banner.
- The Individual countries each have their own voting power in Europe and the Commonwealth. We would lose a power bloc if our associations were to be considered as a single entity on the world stage.
We should follow the ITTF model where the WTT runs events and the ITTF deals with all the background and support.
So, we should consider having all the administration in UKTT and also the competitions, events and playing activity in UKTT Active.
UKTT could take on all the administration from the four nations.
This would save a lot of duplication for the administrative function and could be held in a single database.
The ranking system would be held within the Membership area.
Education would include all the administration for the registration and training of coaches and officials
UKTT Active would deal with all the actual activity. Each member associations would have its own development officer and competitions and events management.
Competition Structure
The Competition Review has been ongoing since 2020 and I understand that it has only just been presented to the Board. If it is anything like any previous attempts by Neil Rodgers and Simon Mills, it will be a document full of pretty pictures, graphs and management speak with very few actual recommendations to change our competition structure.
From the most recent document that I have seen, the scope is as follows:
- IN scope: national competition programmes that sit within Table Tennis England governance/ delivery (including tournaments, sanctioned events, national leagues, schools)
- OUT of scope: social competition, and competition programmes that do not sit within Table Tennis England governance/ delivery (including VETTS, BUCS, local leagues)
This lack of joined up thinking almost guarantees that the Competition Review will not be as effective as it should be. What a waste of 18 months! Undertaken by incompetent people.
I understand that one of the insights is that a person from Preston is more likely to enter an event in Blackpool than they are to play in a similar event in Brighton. Similarly, the player from Preston is more likely to enter an event in Blackpool than a person from Brighton. Insight that has taken 18 months that I could have told them over a coffee in Costa Milton Keynes.
In 2020, the performance department stated that our junior players needed to go abroad to get good quality competition because our own competition structure “was not fit for purpose” Since our competition structure is entirely under the control of TTE, we should be able to make changes the bring our competition structure up to standard.
As we try to head towards Carbon Zero as a nation and indeed internationally, we should keep international travel to a minimum, In fact, we should be aiming to minimise domestic travel as far as possible.
We should try to ensure that all players have the opportunity to play table tennis
o at the right level
o wherever they live
o to enable their enjoyment
o or should they so wish to develop their skills towards competing at the highest levels.
So, our competition structure needs to be a pyramid.
- The ability of clubs to run events for their members will be subject to capacity and resources.
- There are already several tournament organisers running events on a regular basis – Jason Ramage, Simon Morgan, Rory Scott etc
UKTT Active should set up a franchise arrangement for tournament organisers to run the events that it needs as part of the competition structure in various parts of the country and also the National events. The franchise arrangement would set the quality standards for the organisers to run their events.
A good example of this is the Masters Series of events run each season by the VETTS. These are very successful and tend to make sufficient profit for the VETTS to keep on running them.
The National Level events would be the same level as grand prix events and the National Championships. All of which make losses because they are not organised and priced effectively.
The commercial side of the competition structure is very important. We should look for several small sponsors for each event rather than just one large sponsor and probably local to that event. We need to ensure that any potential sponsor is able to see where they can get a return on their investment. Either by access to the database or by having promotional material and possibly presence at events. A mutually beneficial relationship is the way to maximise long-term support.
Banded unisex events
Traditionally, our events have been based on sex and age. I believe that we should move towards events where competitors are matched by ability. It is discriminatory to split events into male and female and also in this age of transgender or gender fluidity the banded events cater for everybody. Currently, due to the number of females playing at most events, they must play each other more often than they would want to.
Clubs, Leagues and Counties
All clubs, leagues and counties should be described as branches of UK TT Active to integrate them into the National Structure. Eg UKTT Active Hollingbury TTC, UKTT Active Brighton League, UKTT Active Sussex. This branding should increase public awareness, which in turn, may lead to easing the search for local sponsorship.
British League
The lower division of the British League should be a local division. Eg Winners and possibly runners-up of local leagues – Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton, Worthing, South- West Sussex, Haywards Heath, Crawley & Horsham and East Grinstead league. Possibly split into East and West Sussex to reduce travel.
The next division up could contain clubs from Kent, Surrey and Sussex. The net going wider until the second level is north or south with the top division being national
This already happens to an extent, but it needs to tie in with the local leagues to form one integrated pyramid structure between clubs and local leagues up to the Premier Division of the British League.
The geographical structure of should also be used for Junior and cadet events. These are often at a centralised venue, but I believe that local and regional events would encourage progression.
County Championships
This geographical pyramid also should be applied at all age groups.
Calendar
Currently the calendar is too crowded to be effective. We need to aim for quality rather than quantity. On a four-week month:
- Weekend 1 – training and education – coaching for players, training and courses for coaches and officials.
- Weekend 2 – club or local individual events.
- Weekend 3 – Team events
- Weekend 4 – regional or national events
If the month contains a 5th weekend, then it should be left free.
This should enable players and coaches to prepare methodically for specific events with definite time gaps for re-grouping and preparation for optimal performance.
Ranking System
This has been the subject of several projects to review the system and method of calculations. Again, lots of projects and no changes made.
I believe that the current system that rewards points for wins at various events with weighting according to particular events is a reasonable system.
However, I would make the following changes.
- Award points for all activity, even attendance at club and coaching. This can be fairly small, but it all adds into the points built up.
- Example weighting of points awarded at events for the level of the win. Possibly as follows.
- Win in group x 1
- Win in last 32 x 1.1
- Win in last 16 x 1.2
- Win in last 8 x 1.3
- Win in semi-final x 1.4
- Win in final x 1.5
- Losers at each only lose x 1 points.
- Only have one ranking list for all events, all age groups, unisex
- Only have ranking positions published for the top 50 players
- All the other players listed in bands according to the points accrued.
- If lists are required for certain age groups or different sexes, those lists are sub-sets of the master list.
This system would tie into the competitions being run based on quality of players rather than whether they are male or female.
The single list would accommodate the integration of transgender or gender fluid players, rather than discriminating against them.
It would also not discriminate between men and women. Currently a woman beating a man in Senior British League gets no points. A match between two veterans in Senior British League scores on both the senior and veteran ranking list and possibly with different points scored depending on the players’ ranking in each category.
At the outset, the merging of our current lists will throw up some anomalies as players may have accrued their points only within certain categories of players. This should not take too long to evolve into a reasonably representative list of playing ability.
Media and broadcasting
Currently table tennis in this country is very rarely on television. The most recent success story in this respect was the World Championship of PingPong that was broadcast by Sky in collaboration with Matchroom.
We need to retry with Matchroom to get table tennis on television. This will greatly increase the public awareness of the sport which in turn may have the effect of increased commercialisation of the sport.
Greater commercialism would hopefully reduce our reliance on the funding from Sport England.
Umpires and officials
One of the main expenses for tournaments is the provision of umpires. Tournaments would not run without them. Every match needs one.
It would make sense to train as many people as possible to qualify them as umpires. Therefore, rather than having the expense of bringing in specialist umpires, the players with umpiring qualifications could share the umpiring duties at events. Possibly even getting a discount on their entry fees by agreeing to umpire a certain number of matches.
Currently, this happens to an extent. Often, the losing player from a previous round will umpire the next round. This is not ideal, as the player may not be in any mood to officiate properly and simply goes through the motions of turning over the numbers on the scoreboard, sometimes without even saying the score.
A greater number of qualified umpires would also increase the consistency and quality of umpiring at events. Taking them from within the numbers of players competing is efficient for costs.
That is not say that specialist umpires would no longer be needed. But perhaps they could be reserved for the more important matches. It is a very hard day, umpiring one match after another and it requires a special person to do that.
But if the umpiring load is shared, I think that it will be more effective for all concerned.
Coaching
The most important element of player development is coaching.
We need to qualify enough coaches to meet the demands of our membership. The attainment of qualifications and maintenance of Continuous Professional Development are vital to ensuing quality at every level.
This diagram being identical to the Competition Structure is entirely intentional. Coaching and competition must be integrated. The work done at club level prepares for and leads to competition entries.
The National Level is what is currently called Performance. Performance should simply be a progression achieved by a player within the competition and coaching structures. It should not be a standalone entity as it requires constant feeding through the pyramid.
Governance
Currently, this is rather untidy.
We have a Board that is supposed to be setting the strategy, but it has allowed the executive senior leadership team to set the strategy. The Board contains some excellent Directors, but it is chaired very poorly and is therefore less effective than it should be.
We have articles of association that are out of line in certain places with the Code for Sport Governance.
We have a National Council that sees itself more as a Parliamentary style opposition to the Board and TTE management rather than a critical friend. The voting power of the National Council can stop the Board from enacting changes to the articles of association that it requires to remain compliant with the Code for Sport Governance.
Members of the senior leadership team have been unaccountable for some time.
The communication back to the membership is not transparent in the way it should be in accordance with the Code of Sport Governance.
The transition from Association to Limited Company was not done effectively. We have ended up with the new Company Law layered over the old association rules and that has led to problems where the regimes do not match. The management of TTE has not been well advised by its legal advisers and this is still the case.
UKTT
The arrival of UKTT gives us the opportunity to get the Governance right going forward. It will be possible to set up new articles of association and those should be in line with the Code for Sport Governance.
Voting Powers
Voting powers need to be reviewed. This gives us the opportunity to embrace the theory of “One Member, one vote.”
Currently there are around 25,000 members but our voting poll is in the region of 67,000. This is not logical. My membership is currently worth 6 – one for each league in which I am registered. In fact, it is 12 as the leagues and county votes are duplicated. If I am a Company Member for a local league my power would between 100-150. If I am National Councillor for Sussex, my power would be over 1,000, which can cancel out the votes of the league company members.
I would suggest that each member is given the opportunity to elect who is going to cast their single vote.
- Themselves
- A club
- A league
- A county
This could be done on a drop-down box when they renew their membership.
This would acknowledge the importance of clubs in the Governance Structure.
Membership fees
Over the years, membership fees have been a bone of contention.
Most local league players feel that they get very little from TTE and the existence of TTE at all has very little or no relevance to them continuing to play in their local league.
Of course, TTE provides a whole range of products and services to try to cater for the membership. But most members use very few of them. Or they are not aware of them I have had a “what did the Romans ever do for us?” type of conversation several times on social media.
The problem over the years has been communication. TTE is not getting through to its membership as effectively as it should. I presume that we all receive the weekly news email, but how many actually open it? Or do they think that is full of things not relevant to them?
Historically, we had Table Tennis News to provide information. Obviously, times have moved on and most of us have access to TTE website and social media. The letter page of TTN has been replaced by social media content. However, this type of publication is still popular as can be seen by the newsletter produced by Harvey and Diane Webb.
The membership fees were set out in the last meaningful TTE strategy document – Mission 2025. At the time in 2015, fees were £10 per year for seniors and £5 for juniors. These were to be increased by £2 per year to reach £20 by 2020.
Everybody understood this, but various issues have occurred since that time which have left the fees at £16/£8. So, this year, the fees are due to go up to £20/£10.
The problem and also the opportunity with fees is that members do not know what their fee is due to provide to them. This is all about features and benefits. Also, about price and value.
Table Tennis England has an array of products and services. These are all features. But the only benefits to me are the insurance, the coaching and umpiring awards and safeguarding. I get no benefits from features such as Ping! Loop! TTKidz or even coaching for me and certainly not performance.
Price is what you pay, value is what you get. I could pay £1 or £1.50 for a ball. Same value/benefit, but different price.
The Code for Sport Governance states that the Board should set the strategy and this includes the financial strategy.
If the Board were to be clear about the costs of providing their products and services, alongside detail of which funding source is paying, then we would know what the membership fees are paying for.
If we knew that the services covered by the membership cost £500,000. If this in split between 25,000, then a fee of £20 per member would cover the costs. If costs were £600,000, the fees should be £30 per member. Obviously, this is a simplistic view, but gives the idea how a fair fee level could be calculated.
Summary
Thank you for getting to this point. I hope that you have found the ideas interesting and thought provoking.
Some of the ideas may well be in place to a certain extent.
I am under no illusions that all my ideas are right or practical. But I hope that my mad ideas could be used practically with some tweaking.
I have been disappointed that we have had projects and reviews of the ranking system and competition structure and nobody has taken the opportunity to grasp any nettles.
There are many things in our sport that are very well designed and run. But far too few things are integrated into the whole structure. Therefore, they are not as effective as they could be.
I am hopeful that the appointment of Adrian Christy as Chief Executive Officer will usher in a new era of transparency and accountability that will repair the fractured relationship between the Membership and the Board and management of Table Tennis England.
I hope that some of my suggestions may be useful to him and his colleagues to make real changes to improve the running of the sport and improving the experience of the members however they choose to consume the products and services that are available.
Good luck to Adrian.