BRITISH basketball star Temi Fagbenle hit out at Sport England and UK Sport today for “trying to rip the shirts off the GB team’s backs” by refusing to fund the sport’s international set-up.

She also accused the agencies of ignoring basketball at the expense of “obscure” middle-class sports not played by youngsters from ethnically diverse or poorer backgrounds.

The 25-year-old Londoner’s words come as British Basketball boss Lisa Wainwright warns the country’s eight senior and age-group teams will have to be wound up unless they receive backing.

Despite being one of the biggest participation sports, basketball gets no support for its national sides from elite funding agency UK Sport and is about to lose the last of its help from Sport England, which funds grassroots sport.

Harvard-educated Fagbenle, a Women’s National Basketball Association champion with the Minnesota Lynx last year, said “it’s crazy” the British game faces this crisis given its success and growing popularity.

Fagbenle and her teammates are ranked 21st in the world but are set to rise after back-to-back wins this week in Portugal and Israel that have taken them joint-top of their EuroBasket 2019 qualifying group with two home games to play.

With UK Sport investing £100 million a year in Olympic and Paralympic sport, and Sport England backing hundreds of talented athletes across the spectrum, Fagbenle and Wainwright are asking why £1m cannot be found to fund the entire basketball programme for a year.

“When I see sports like modern pentathlon and skeleton, which aren’t popular in inner-city or working-class communities, get millions of pounds, I wonder what sort of world the powers that be are living in and what agenda they are trying to push,” said Fagbenle.

“I feel like they are literally trying to rip the GB shirts off my and my teammates’ backs.

“Just look at the athletes on the basketball teams — a lot of us are from ethnic minorities and/or grew up in working-class households.

“The youth from these groups, and young people in general, aren’t inspired by obscure sports that are completely alien to them, they are inspired by athletes they can relate with.

“Basketball has the power to attract people of all backgrounds but without a rapid change in how we are funded and, subsequently, publicly viewed in Great Britain, this great power will be completely lost.”

Having struggled against more established basketball nations for years, Great Britain was given a host-country invite to the London Olympics in 2012 and it was hoped that could provide a launch pad for the sport.

Elite funding was cut after London 2012, so progress has been stop-start, but recent results suggest Britain is becoming a contender, with the men’s U20 and U18 teams all now in Europe’s top division.

But Wainwright warned: “From April onward we have about £100,000 guaranteed via the British Basketball League. We need £1m to fund our eight teams for a year. That’s between 100 athletes.

“If we don’t find this money, the teams will be suspended for two years and then demoted to the bottom rung in Europe. It will take about eight years to get back to where we are now.”

The sport’s plight has attracted the attention of politicians, with a Westminster debate on the funding crisis scheduled for next Tuesday.