The Sport and Recreation Alliance (SRA) has called on the government to reduce the amount of red tape in sport ahead of this week's budget announcement.

SRA has published a report highlighting the regulatory burden placed on sport and recreation clubs, called Red Card to Red Tape - How sports clubs want to break free from bureaucracy.

The report lists 10 issues that the alliance feels are wasting resources at sports clubs.

The 10 points are:
• Clubs being charged for a music licence for playing a radio in the changing room or putting the TV in the bar on for the sports results
• Local authorities not allowing clubs to use their leisure facilities unless they have £5m of public liability insurance
• Clubs being charged VAT to develop public facilities open to the community, forcing them to raise 20 per cent more than they should need to
• Local councils banning volunteers from maintaining footpaths and rights of way in case they are sued if something goes wrong
• The necessity to pass an Act of Parliament to allow a motor race on British roads
• Being charged the same as high street bars and nightclubs for liquor licensing
• VAT being charged on spending funded by government grants - an immediate take-back of 20 per cent and a waste of everyone's time
• Clubs adhering to the Health and Safety Act even when not required to do so for fear of being sued
• Sports graduates being required to re-train to meet national standards, despite having spent three years at university
• Even the smallest clubs having to register as a 'data controller' under the Data Protection Act

The report, which was commissioned by sports minister Hugh Robertson, will feed into the government's wider review of regulation being conducted by the Cabinet Office.

SRA chair, Brigid Simmonds, said the review can provide real momentum for change in the way the sector is regulated.

"Every politician acknowledges that sports clubs do nothing but good in their communities," she said.

"But now is the chance to back that acknowledgement with actions and to make life easier for the volunteers who run our clubs.

"Quite simply, sports clubs are choked by red tape. Many of it may be well-meaning but that doesn't take away from the fact that it is making life so hard for clubs that it is putting volunteers off, wasting their valuable time and actually preventing them from growing.