Karate and camogie funding hit by governance issues

Irish karate hasn’t received a cent of Government funding this year, despite the fact that the sport is one of the new inclusions at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.This has been blamed on a major split in its national governing body, with two bodies — ONAKAI and Karate Ireland ONAKAI — now arguing that they represent the sport.ONAKAI received a €6,000 grant last year, but Sport Ireland has not given it any allocation yet for 2019, saying that the grant is dependent “on the successful closure of ongoing governance items”.“We have tried to work with (Irish) karate but there’s been a very significant split,” said Sport Ireland’s director of High Performance, Paul McDermott, pointing out that Sport Ireland offered to intervene with a mediator last summer, but to no avail.The row has now gone to the International Karate Federation and in the meantime athletes, some of whom have already written to Sport Ireland, have been left in limbo, with no funding for their first-ever chance at Olympic qualification.