Are Britain’s tennis bureaucrats wasting our millions – on themselves?

As Andy Murray puts up a spirited fight at the Australian Open, it’s worth wondering what happened to the other British players. They were all ignominiously knocked out in the first round. We give about £36m a year to the utterly useless Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). This is meant to develop new playing talent – but the LTA has failed miserably. So where do our millions go? Well, there are massive salaries for LTA bureaucrats. Then there are luxury, all expenses paid trips for LTA bureaucrats to the best tennis tournaments of the world. And, of course, LTA bosses “need” to do a lot of entertaining as part of their job. So has any of our money actually been spent training new talent? Not much. Maybe it’s time to save some money by cutting the money we give to the pointless LTA?

As for Andy Murray – he took responsibility for his own training and avoided the deadening control of the worthless, overpaid, wasteful LTA bureaucrats