Sweetenham has repeatedly called for increased funding

Sweetenham's annual budget amounts to about a quarter of England football coach Sven-Goran Eriksson's salary.

"I have a budget of �1.08m. Work it out in relation to your national sport," he told the swiminfo.com website.

"There are 10 universities in the US where the swimming budget is greater than we have for the national team."

Britain's swimmers contributed bronze medals from Stephen Parry and David Davies to Team GB's Olympic haul of 30 medals in Athens.

Although it matched Sweetenham's pre-Games prediction, expectations had been high after last year's impressive World Championships in Barcelona.

We were not where I believe we were capable of being in Athens, but we've come a long way GB Swimming performance director Bill Sweetenham

Katy Sexton disappointed in the 100m and 200m backstroke in Athens and fellow world champion James Gibson was sixth in the 100m breaststroke.

Melanie Marshall (200m freestyle) and Darren Mew (100m breaststroke) also missed out despite being strong medal hopes.

Sweetenham admitted at the time that the team had suffered from "Olympic phobia".

But he insists funding differences make it unrealistic to compare Britain's performances with those of swimming superpowers Australia and the USA.

With no main sponsor, British Swimming relies on lottery funding.

"In Australia, the budget is 7.8m Australian dollars (�3m) before funding from state governments and institutions and commercial sponsors," added Sweetenham.

The two-medal haul in Athens was an improvement on the Sydney Games in 2000, when the swimming team failed to win a single medal.

SWEETENHAM FACTFILE Took over from Deryk Snelling as British performance director on 1 November, 2000 Recently signed a new contract that will take him up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Four times Australia's Olympic head coach; eight years as Australia's national coach; four years as Hong Kong's national head coach

Sixteen British swimmers qualified for finals, compared to just 10 in Sydney.

The British team's next challenge is the Fina World Short-course Championships in Indianapolis from 7-11 October.

And Sweetenham insists he is happy with the progress made since he took over in November 2000.

"Britain came from a long way back (in Athens)," said Sweetenham, who signed a four-year extension to his contract as performance director in July.

"Our men's team was second only to Japan in terms of the number of personal bests they produced.

"We were not where I believe we were capable of being in Athens, but we've come a long way."