Netball reputedly has 13 million players globally. England has the most active players of all countries with three million, and Africa has the most of all continents.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, a Commonwealth-centric sport, there is no mistaking Glasgow 2026 is a major occasion for netball.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the Commonwealth Games is grappling for survival, amid concerns over hosting costs and growing questions about relevancy to the modern world given its foundations in Britain’s colonial past.<\/p>\n
The event remains “hugely important to netball”, World Netball president Dame Liz Nicholl told BBC Sport, pointing out over 150,000 tickets were sold for netball at Birmingham 2022.<\/p>\n
“We strongly support the Commonwealth Games and want to see it thrive,” she said. “But the future of netball cannot depend on one event.”<\/p>\n
Chelsea Pitman, a Commonwealth gold medallist with England in 2018 and now head coach at Nottingham Forest, told BBC Sport: “We need it. If the Olympics becomes part of netball, [it would be] absolutely amazing. But Commonwealth Games allows netball to be part of a multi-sport, massive masterpiece of sport. There’s nothing like it.”<\/p>\n
England head coach Anna Stembridge agrees, telling BBC Sport: “It’s a really important part of our history… a really important part of our four-year cycle.”<\/p>\n
There’s another stumbling block: netball is no longer guaranteed a Commonwealth Games platform, with only athletics and swimming now designated as core sports.<\/p>\n
Netball is mindful of all possibilities and one alteration is that the quadrennial World Cup is going biennial from next year.<\/p>\n
But the campaign for inclusion in the 2032 Olympics is also gathering pace, with a decision expected soon.<\/p>\n
“Achieving Olympic inclusion would be a very important moment in the sport’s history,” said Dame Liz, a former Wales netball international who was UK Sport CEO from 2010 to 2019.<\/p>\n
She believes the knock-on effects of netball getting the nod from the IOC could “future-proof it for the generations to come”.<\/p>\n
“To be in the Olympics is an ambition for every athlete and, if ever there is a chance, it is now,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We must demonstrate strong governance, global reach, compelling events and alignment with the Olympic movement’s priorities.<\/p>\n
“We believe netball has a very strong case and can make a meaningful contribution to Brisbane 2032.”<\/p>\n
From two waste paper bins and a ball in a Kent college to the Olympic stage?<\/p>\n
Tack, Madame Osterberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netball reputedly has 13 million players globally. England has the most active players of all countries with three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-818386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}