Sheffield Hatters require financial support to play in 2020/21 WBBL - can you help?

Sheffield Hatters, the UK’s first and most successful women’s basketball club, are set to withdraw from the WBBL for financial reasons.
By Paul Goodwin
Published 6th Jul 2020, 12:12 BST
Updated 6th Jul 2020, 12:15 BST
Flashback: Sheffield Hatters, captained by Vanessa Ellis, celebrate victory in the 2002 National Cup Final. Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesFlashback: Sheffield Hatters, captained by Vanessa Ellis, celebrate victory in the 2002 National Cup Final. Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
Flashback: Sheffield Hatters, captained by Vanessa Ellis, celebrate victory in the 2002 National Cup Final. Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Covid-19 has prevented the club from fundraising and they have told the WBBL they cannot afford to play the 2020/21 season.

The league has not yet closed the door on Hatters, who are appealing for new sponsors.

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Head coach Vanessa Ellis told BBC Radio Sheffield: “ We need a certain amount of money to run and due to Covid-19, with the season finishing early, we missed opportunities for fundraising and unfortunately a lot of our sponsors can’t give us as much as normal.

“We’re in a difficult financial position so we can’t commit to playing next season. We’re all gutted. It’s out of our hands really.

“To run our WBBL team we need about £60,000 for the season. We bring that in over the season. It’s normally achieveable for us but we’re struggling. We’ll keep trying but it doesn’t look good.”

She added: “We’ve let the WBBL know that we don’t think we’ll enter the league. They’re giving us time to see if we can find funding. They haven’t just said ‘you can’t enter’ but it doesn’t look likely that we’re going to get that money.”

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Hatters were formed in 1961 by Betty Codona OBE, Vanessa’s mother, who coached them to no fewer than 40 national titles. The club’s strong junior programme caters for teams from under 10s up to under 18s.

“It’s not just about winning, we’re successful in getting girls playing sport,” said Ellis. “The fact we won’t have a team means we don’t have the role models for younger players to look up to and it has a big knock-on effect.

“At the moment we are the only WBBL team with these problems but it may be that over the next couple of weeks other teams might have similar issues.

“Most of the teams have got big support from big organisations whether it be universities or businesses. We are the only one that’s a voluntary club. Westfield Health support us on a regular basis but other than that we haven’t got anything behind us. We’re keeping our fingers crossed somebody may be to help.”

Anyone willing to help Hatters should email [email protected] or contact Vanessa on Twitter via @nessellis13.

Related topics:Covid-19BBC Radio Sheffield