 Petchey ended his coaching role with Andy Murray in 2006 |
Mark Petchey has called for the Lawn Tennis Association to be disbanded following Great Britain's 4-1 Davis Cup loss to Ukraine at the weekend. Petchey, a former GB Davis Cup player and LTA official, believes the defeat is the latest sign the game in Britain needs to be restructured. "We are not allocating the resources well enough, we need to disband the LTA," Petchey told Radio 5 Live. Petchey wants ex-GB star Tim Henman to be part of a new LTA funding committee. "You can't disband the entire set-up but you can streamline it to a point where you have 10s of millions [of pounds] available to put into a club structure that we currently don't have," he said. "The new set-up should include a group of about eight people who decide how best the money should be spent. "Tim Henman needs to be on that; David Lloyd, as a great businessman, needs to be there; and Judy Murray, who has done an unbelievable job with Tennis Scotland, also needs to be there." Petchey was also critical of bonuses paid to the head of women's tennis, as well as the annual salary of the LTA's chief executive Roger Draper. "The bottom line is, if you speak to the players and the clubs, everybody is struggling [financially]," said the former LTA official.  | 606: DEBATE | "But despite that they still paid a bonus to the head of women's tennis for �25,920. "I think the priorities now are completely out of whack for what needs to happen. "The head of women's tennis has had bonuses that totals more than my club needs to resurface their courts. "The chief executive's salary is reported to be more than the whole of Tennis Scotland gets. "How can it be that one person gets more than one nation?" Petchey, who was men's national team manager before leaving to coach current GB number one Andy Murray, said in his column for the Times newspaper that more money needs to be spent on coaching. "Much more needs to be spent on coach education to raise standards at the club/school level across the country," he said. "By raising the standard of coaching we will raise the overall standard." On Sunday, Ukraine completed a 4-1 win over Britain, who now face a relegation play-off at home to Poland in September as they try to stay in Euro/Africa Group One - the second division of the Davis Cup.
|
Bookmark with:
What are these?