Marathon runner tasked with ensuring British athletics has a sporting chance

He believes the decision was instrumental in securing London’s bid to stage the world athletics and para-athletics games in 2017.

“We are bringing world standard athletics back to London, building on everything we saw in the Olympics and Paralympics,” he says. “We won the events because we organised ourselves well, lobbied the Government and got the Mayor (Boris Johnson) behind us.”

This was of huge importance on the international stage, says Warner. “The Olympics showed the world what athletics means to the British public.”

For Warner, 2017 will be the culmination of a 10-year campaign to strengthen an athletics framework that lacked success and leadership when he applied for the top post in 2007. At the time he was presenting BBC sports bulletins and writing for The Daily Telegraph after selling IFX to Michael Spicer.

“I had this great passion for sport and when I Iooked at the challenges facing the organisation it struck me it would be interesting to combine the things I’d learned in the City with a whole new sphere of operation and a love of athletics,” he says.

Change and reorganisation was the basic remit. The Athletics UK board had decided on a fundamental shake-up after a disastrous failure in the European championships in 2006 and the resignation of David Moorcroft, the chief executive.

Warner applied business disciplines, embarking on a radical reorganisation programme to sharpen focus, priorities and fund-raising but above all to provide the framework for a successful London Olympics.

He had three objectives – success at major championships, developing strong commercial backing and making a bigger impact in the prickly atmosphere of politics in sport. “In each of these areas we’ve made pretty good progress,” says the architect of the change.

This summer the British athletics team enjoyed its best ever performance in the European championships. Changes in the approach to commercial sponsorship increased funding and Lord (Sebastian) Coe has helped Warner pilot his way through the political minefields.

Securing funding is not easy, with athletics just one of the sporting organisations vying for government and lottery funding. Warner had his work cut out to win long-term government support for maintaining athletics facilities in the Olympic stadium as part of its 2017 world championship bid. “Rather embarrassingly England had just lost its bid for the soccer World Cup and we had to persuade them that this was a bid that could be won and that they wouldn’t end up with egg on their faces a second time,” said Warner. “It was a huge political hot potato but we went in with the pitch that this was all about the passion of London for sport.”

Warner is fighting other funding battles too. “The environment post-2012 for sponsorship is brutally hard. The big businesses that supported the Olympics have moved on,” he said. “They think they’ve done their sporting bit and the amount we’ve secured has probably halved compared with five years ago.”

He is searching for new funding avenues to meet his second key objective – developing an system that delivers success on the track and provides coaches for the athletes of today and tomorrow as well as facilities and medical back-up.

Lottery money – around £8m a year – is earmarked for elite programmes.

“It enables sports people to focus 100pc on their sport rather than having to make ends meet by doing something on the side,” he says. “We try and create for them a 'no excuses’ environment with the best doctors, coaches, scientists and enough money to pay their bills.”

Warner cites Mo Farah as an example of a “global superstar” who has benefitted. “They ensure he wants for nothing and it’s paid off but there’s no guarantee it’ll pay off with everyone. You still need talent.”

But Warner also voices concern about the way UK Sport, the powerful body at the centre of British sport, is “focusing on winning medals”. “A number of sports with an unrealistic chance of winning medals will in future receive no funding or very little funding,” he warns, citing basketball as an example.

The sporting bug has clearly dug deep into the Warner psyche and will continue to do so when he completes his 10 years as a club runner-cum-athletics overlord. “I don’t want to leave the sporting arena. I enjoy it hugely.”

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