Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association president David Lambert has renewed the call for a sports lottery in the wake of the cash crisis that nearly put paid to the Island?s Davis Cup chances.

Only the 11th hour generosity of an anonymous BLTA member and the intervention of Sports Minister Dale Butler kept the Island?s tennis team in the sport?s premier international competition.

And Lambert, who had to plead with International Tennis Federation (ITF) officials to extend the deadline to allow Bermuda to remain in next month?s event in Costa Rica, is calling for a financial safety net to be put in place to prevent a repeat of this week?s shenanigans.

?Sport is vital in the social infrastructure of Bermuda,? Lambert told

?There are thousands of people who take part in a whole range of sports on the Island all for different reasons. Some people do it just for recreation, others for self-enhancement and others with the aspirations to compete at the highest level for their country, Bermuda.

?There are people fighting for scholarships, people wanting to take part in international sport and we shouldn?t be in a situation where people are being denied their dreams for financial reasons ? not on an Island as wealthy as this.

?We are lucky that we have some very skilled people working in the governing bodies of many sports here and they sit around tables and have all these ambitions and goals and dreams.

?But unless we can be sure of funding, that is all they will remain ? dreams and ideas and nothing more.

?We need to see some kind of sports lottery to raise money to support international competition if teams are unable to raise sponsorship.

?A financial safety net is also a possibility and it is something Government need to take the lead on.

?Sponsorship can fall through at any time, that is the nature of sport, but there should be some mechanism in place to ensure that we can continue to compete.

?I wouldn?t want the president of any other sporting governing body to go through what I have been through in the past few days.?

The issue of a sports lottery has been raised time and time again in Bermuda as a way of financing grass roots sport or even international competition.

Tennis is not the only sport to have suffered financial hardship, as a result of a change in the ITF funding policy, but it has hit the headlines recently due to the prestige of the Davis Cup.

Football has suffered in the past, with Bermuda?s mid-Atlantic isolation making the cost of organising friendlies a heavy burden. Bermuda Football Association, after having to meet part of the cost for visits by Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago, will have to dig deep once more as they prepare for an April tour to Central America in the build-up to the World Cup qualifiers against El Salvador.

Lambert has said he is keen to meet with Sports Minister Dale Butler and Finance Minister Paula Cox and has even offered to address Cabinet on the issue.

But Butler, while admitting he has been busy with cricket and athletics recently, said that setting up a sports foundation was part of Government?s plans.

?It is something that was referred to in the Throne Speech,? he told

?We have been incredibly busy recently dealing with such issues as the Bermuda Football Association, Carifta and (cricket) World Cup 2007 issues but this is something we are serious about dealing with.

?Over the next two years we are going to be looking very carefully at these issues and ways in which Government can help to resolve them.?