The Home Affairs Bureau has proposed consolidating the existing financial support schemes for elite athletes into a unified scheme - Elite Athletes Grants.

In a paper submitted to the Legislative Council, the bureau said the Sports Institute is working on the implementation arrangement and the scheme will launch later this month.

The bureau said it is providing $40 million in additional funding annually from 2007-08 onwards to enhance elite athletes' support. Half of the additional recurrent provision will be used to improve direct financial support to athletes.

As a result, the actual amount of Government recurrent subvention to the Sports Institute for direct financial support to athletes will increase to $26.5 million. Together with the institute's annual drawdown of about $9 million from the Jockey Club Elite Athletes Fund, total direct financial support to athletes will rise to $35.5 million a year.

More training support 

To cater for the growing need for training, the bureau will allocate $6 million from the remaining $20 million to training-programme expenses to be deployed directly by head coaches. The actual amount for athletes training programmes will be around $28.86 million in 2007-08, up 26% on the institute's relevant budget in 2006-07.

The bureau said athletes may also tap the Arts & Sport Development Fund for one-off funding to prepare for and participate in major games.

A $40 million injection into the fund's sports portion has been approved by the LegCo Finance Committee. This will provide a stable source of funding for athletes in anticipation of the major games in coming years.