DESPITE the financial chaos ricocheting around the globe these days, sports fans in Britain still have plenty to smile about.

The country's athletes have just returned from their best-ever performance at an Olympic Games, their football team crushed Croatia 4-1 in a World Cup qualifier, and it could get even better if the Europeans manage a fourth successive whipping of the Americans in this weekend's Ryder Cup.

But much of this unprecedented success hasn't come about by accident.

Some years ago it was decided to provide better facilities, better coaching and more opportunities for all athletes by pumping millions of pounds created by a national lottery into all sports – an idea that has been constantly rejected by successive governments in this country.

Now politicians in the UK have agreed to invest more than $20 million into sport by bolstering facilities in schools and colleges.

And, perhaps, it's an idea that could seriously be adopted here, particularly in light of the fact that already more than that amount has been given to our two national sports which, so far, hasn't produced the desired results.

While a child's sporting potential is often spotted during their schooldays, there's little incentive to develop that potential unless they are encouraged to join clubs or organisations outside school.

Wouldn't it be better if that potential had chance to grow in tandem with their education, both during and after school?

And with youth violence more prevalent now than ever before, wouldn't it give the kids an opportunity to distance themselves from that dark side of society and explore a multitude of sports currently not available to them (boxing, martial arts, for example) rather than demonstrate their misconceived superiority in fist, knife and even gun fights.

Often, it seems, sport isn't considered an important part of the school curriculum.

But it might be a circumstance created by the lack of proper facilities.

If that were to change, the benefits could be enormous, not only for the pupils but for the community as a whole.

In the UK, the project will see more basketball and netball courts built on school grounds, it will see mini-floodlights installed around school fields, allowing five-a-side, even 11-a-side football be played in the winter months after lessons have finished, it will see equipment provided for archery, table tennis, fencing – sports not particularly popular, but only because those who aren't interested in the traditional games, football and cricket, aren't given the opportunity to try something else.

In Bermuda, sailing and rowing, despite the efforts of the RBYC and RHADC, aren't exposed to as many schoolchildren as they should be, purely because the facilities needed aren't provided.

Cricket and football could remain national sports, and should continue to receive funding but maybe, like Britain, the sports budget could benefit more kids than it does now.

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AS the Paralympic Games wound up in Beijing this week, the international committee responsible for organisation announced that in the next festival in London in 2012, a new category would be introduced – Intellectual Disability.

That was greeted by a degree of scepticism from many in the host country, one newspaper columnist suggesting that Britain could make a clean sweep by fielding the entire national football team and pupils from a third of the nation's secondary schools.

But the Brits shouldn't be too confident.

If Bermuda decides to name a squad including some of those who run the educational system in this Island, bolstered by some who sit in the House of Assembly on a Friday afternoon, they might face some stiff competition!

- ADRIAN ROBSON