John McCririck slams BHA over fixtures delay

Plunging Levy payments - the money received from the racing profits made by bookmakers - have prevented publication of the fixture list for 2011 until 23 September, a delay of two months.

The BHA have put forward a case for an annual Levy yield of at least £130million. The bookmakers are offering nearer £70m and progress depends on favourable intervention from the government. Roy has overseen a modernisation project, Racing For Change, which has been widely criticised for not delivering radical reform.

The BHA chief blames racing's funding predicament largely on the former Labour government, accusing them of paying "lip service to the sport" and "masterly inaction" for their failure to close loopholes that allow bookmakers to go offshore to avoid Levy obligations. But Roy and his chief executive Nic Coward are the problem, according to McCririck.

The racing pundit said: "I have no confidence in them whatsoever. In the city you are judged on results. Any board in the city would have fired them. What have they delivered?

"Yet they have the audacity to go to the government asking for dispensation to ask for more money. They want to have a look at how they run their own organisation.

"It is not the government's job to interfere and prop up racing. Racing must solve its own problems. We have to work together and co-operate with bookmakers."