Guernsey stars may face �900 bill

Guernsey's sports men and women will not all stay at the same venue

Guernsey's Island Games athletes could each face a bill of up to �900 to go to this summer's event in Aland.

The island is sending a party of 238 to the Finnish island in the Baltic, with 213 competitors.

The flight for the athletes will cost in the region of �330, with the rest of the costs associated with food and accommodation.

The cost is more than Rhodes in 2007, but less than Shetland 2005 when athletes had to stay on a cruise ship.

"Our flight has helped this year," said Guernsey's Island Games Association's chairman Denise Fawcett.

"The price that they've been able to do the travel is very good, and the other advantage is that we're paying in sterling, as opposed to the accommodation which is in Euros."

And Fawcett says that while the price of the accommodation, at about �500, is about what was expected, the team will not be able to stay together.

"Different sports have been allocated different areas within the island, which is quite unusual," he revealed.

"We haven't got choices with this, the host island tells us where and we go go where we're instructed. You can't go to them and say 'we're going to stay in a certain place', the host island allocate the accommodation."

But Fawcett says she is unhappy that she has only been able to tell competitors now about the final cost for the week-long games four months on from the 27 June opening ceremony.

"I wish we'd have known exactly where we were going to be a lot earlier. We're much, much further down the road than normal," she said.

"We normally know well in advance where we're going to be staying and how much it's going to cost and therefore we'd be able to tell the competitors a lot earlier than now exactly what to expect in cost."