ALEX TURNER is the general manager of financial training firm Ambitious Minds

SPORT remains the only sector in the UK economy that is oblivious to recession.

Manchester City’s eye-watering £195m annual losses, though sportingly dubious, are at least being funded by owners with very, very deep pockets.

Big money is not restricted to football. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) this week released its annual report, which showed pre-tax profits of £14.5m, after revenues jumped 22% to £136m.

So why is £28m of taxpayers’ money being directed via Sport England to the RFU between 2009-13?

This isn’t a situation unique to Rugby Union. For example, Rugby League receives a similar amount and all the major sports receive significant funding.

Sport is now big business, but it wants to retain the benefits of its amateur, or at least community, roots. That should stop.

If Rugby Union’s governing body can generate revenues, and profits, at that level, then the onus should be on it to invest in its own future success.

The problem is that the Sport England money – which is from a combination of Lottery funding and taxpayers’ money – is effectively being used to fund the sales and marketing arm of a multi-million- pound industry.

Investments in community work, children’s coaching and talent development are not undertaken altruistically, but to fill the pipeline with potential fans, sponsors and players. In other words, if Sport England didn’t fund this work, then the industry itself would have to, because otherwise it would quickly begin to shrink.

It isn’t just club sports that benefit from government and quango largesse. Next year’s Olympics is burning through cash quicker than if we kept the Olympic flame alight with £20 notes, while London’s successful bid last week to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships ensures that many more millions will be spent to fund elite sport, and the bloated bureaucracy that flies around the world under the athletics banner.

With spending still under tight scrutiny, we need to examine some of the assumptions that we rely upon when spending many millions of pounds from the public purse on sport – and we should start by looking at whether it is right that very profitable organisations receive hand-outs to grow their businesses.