Great Britain women’s basketball captain Temi Fagbenle says the team “could pose a big threat in the future” if they had more funding.
Speaking to BBC Sport before Women’s EuroBasket 2023, the 2017 WNBA champion said GB women could do “much more” if they had similar backing to nations who have been successful in the past.
They kick off their EuroBasket campaign on Thursday against co-hosts Slovenia.
There are also five Olympic qualifying spots on offer at this year’s event.
Great Britain are ranked 20th in the world, just one place behind Slovenia. Also in Group C are world number six team France and Germany, ranked 36th.
Great Britain made the EuroBasket semi-finals in 2019 and Fagbenle was the tournament’s leading points scorer. However, they failed to qualify for the last edition in 2021.
Fagbenle, 30, played in the London 2012 Olympic Games and, having spent so long in the GB setup, believes they have the ability to be competing at top of the sport.
“I know how much more we could do if we had the backing, support and funding,” she said.
“You just watch other teams around the world who are successful and they have funding, they have structure, they have backing and the ability to train multiple times a year. If we had more of that, we could pose a big threat in the future.”
Chris Grant, chair of the British Basketball Federation (BBF) this week sent an open letter criticising the amount of funding the sport receives despite basketball being “the second most-played team sport in Britain”.
Grant says that when he has spoken to funders and media organisations about supporting the BBF, the response he gets is that basketball is a “niche sport”.
He makes a comparison to sailing and shooting, which are receiving about £22.7m and £6.2m from UK Sport respectively for the Paris Olympic Games cycle, which runs from 2021 to 2025.
For the same period, UK Sport is committing £1.35m to basketball.
A spokesperson for UK Sport said this funding is to help secure basketball’s “long-term financial sustainability” and to “allow the BBF to appoint new staff, build and grow the organisation, provide immediate support to the women’s EuroBasket campaign”.
“We are committed to powering a broader range of champions and medallists and we recognise the power of basketball to help us achieve that,” the spokesperson said.
Fagbenle hopes the money will eventually be fitting for a sport which she sees as loved by many people in the country.
“It’s great to see how many young people want to play the sport. You have parks and you have rims all over these parks and you see people throwing footballs in basketball hoops. It’s so accessible which is a great part of the sport and it’s so diverse, so everyone’s pretty much doing it,” Fagbenle said.
“We love the sport and we fight for it, day in day out. We’ll continue to play with or without funding. I wish the powers that be can see, and I think they are seeing, that there is a potential future for this.”
There are 16 teams competing at EuroBasket in Slovenia and Israel from 15-25 June. The four semi-finalists and the winner of a play-off competition between the losing quarter-finalists will secure places in the Fiba Olympic qualifying tournaments. France will qualify directly for the 2024 Olympics as hosts.
