The Pararoos used to receive $175,000 a year. But now?

$175,000.

Until last week, that’s how much funding the Pararoos, our Australian Paralympic Football team, received.

They used that money to successfully launch a team made up of players with cerebral palsy or acquired brain injuries. With $175,000 the team could participate in a few national camps per year, as well as an international camp.

They’re currently ranked 12th in the world. Recently, they’ve managed a silver medal in the UAE (the gold went to Iran, who are ranked third in the world), a s

ilver medal at the Fespic Asian games in Malaysia and a silver medal at the ARAFURA games in Darwin.

And yet it’s been decided that the Pararoos still haven’t been performing well enough. So their funding has been cut completely by the Australian Sports Commission.

They now have exactly $0.00 to keep the team going. Zero.

To explain further – since being founded in 1998, the Pararoos qualified for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and came in 8th place. Since then, they haven’t qualified for any Olympic Games – although they are currently ranked 12th in the world, which really isn’t terrible when you compare them to the Socceroos, who are currently ranked 62nd.

But this doesn’t matter to the Australian Sports Commission. This is because they have a policy called “Winning Edge”, where they target investment towards sports and teams that are the most likely to perform well through the summer and winter Olympics, the Paralympics and the Commonwealth Games.

As the Pararoos haven’t qualified for a Games since 2000, they’ve been cut. Matthew Favier, the head of the Australian Sports Commission, told Fairfax that there was little evidence that the team would qualify for the 2016 Rio games:

As ABC reports, the Winning Edge policy has highly rewarded sports which did well at the 2012 Olympics, such as sailing and canoeing. Other sports, and Paralympic sports, have been left out in the cold:

With no funding, it is highly likely that the Pararoos will have to withdraw from international tournaments, and they will struggle to keep the program going.

Pararoos coach Paul Brown has been coaching the team since 2006. He was devastated by the decision, and has since worked tirelessly to get the word about the team out there. He has also started an online petition, calling for the decision to be reversed.

He told Mamamia:

You can sign Paul Brown’s Change.org.au petition to support the Pararoos here .

And in other sports news from the week…

– Many of our Australian athletes have officially arrived in the United Kingdom, ready for the kick-off of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this week. If you’d like to watch, keep an eye on Channel Ten for official coverage.

– Football Federation Australia announced this week that Emma Highwood has been appointed as the Head of Women’s Football. Emma is also currently the FFA’s Head of Community Football, and worked on the launch of the FFA’s Women’s Football Strategy last year. “These are exciting times for women’s football and we have wonderful opportunities from the grassroots to the elite level,” said Emma.“Participation in women’s football is growing rapidly and we have incredible role models in the Westfield Matildas.”

Congratulations, Emma.

–

Taleena Simon has been awarded a full-time, 

professional contract

with the Australian Rugby Union’s Sevens program. This makes her the first Aboriginal woman to receive a full time contract in the program. Congratulations,  Taleena!

– And how could we leave out the result of the 2014 FIFA World Cup – Germany won after an epic 120 minute match during which only one goal was scored. Next up we have the women’s World Cup in Canada in 2015.

Have you seen anything in the news that you’d like to talk about?