Dame Kelly Holmes, the President of Commonwealth Games England, has admitted that it has yet to secure sufficient funding to send a full team to the Delhi Games in October. Holmes, the 2004 double Olympic gold medallist, claimed that the squad’s holding camp prior to the Games was also under threat and that lack of support was more of a concern than the ongoing security threats.
CGE need to raise a £1 million to send a team of more than 500 athletes and officials to the Commonwealth Games and Holmes, 39, said: “We are one of the biggest teams and will be judged on our results. We will be criticised if we don’t do well, so it’s really quite important that our team are supported.
Nations will not bring armed security "The biggest concern for Commonwealth England at the moment is actually funding, as presently, we haven’t got the funds to take the team to Delhi.
"Sport England fund the team but the money only goes so far and when you are looking at taking a team of more than 500 athletes to India, it is obviously works out quite costly.
Holmes’s brief as president is to modernise the appeal and public perception of the Games and the 40-year-old is confident that England’s squad will be safe in Delhi.
She said: "I can assure you, we get regularly updates from our security team and from what we have been told, there seems to be no reason not to send our athletes out to Delhi.
"The safety of the team is paramount and if there was a security risk then of course we would pull them out, but that isn’t an issue at the moment.”
To raise funds for the squad Dame Kelly Holmes will host a Gala Indian Summer Night at the Grovesnor House Hotel in London on June 14
