B.C.'s community football teams feel budget cut

Community football associations are the latest group to complain about funding cutbacks from the British Columbia government.

Several teams have come forward to say their gaming grants were thousands of dollars less than they expected.

The province has already announced cuts to education, arts, literacy and health care as it tries to deal with a $2.8-billion deficit.

The Vancouver Trojans, an East Vancouver community football team, say they're getting significantly less than the $83,000 they were promised in July.

"I can imagine cutbacks … times are lean, it's a recession, you gotta cut back," said Trojans president Kerry Mann. "But do you gotta cut back from $83,000 to $15,000? That's $70,000. Well, where's that gonna come from?"

Mann said the news means the team's future is uncertain: "The first thought that comes to mind is, we can't even finish the season. We can't even afford to rent another bus."

Bob Watson, the Trojans' coach, said the province should have let teams know months ago they would be getting much less money than in previous years.

"It's right up there with the HST [harmonized sales tax]. They threw it in there, nobody anticipated it. When I voted for Gordon Campbell and the Liberals in the last election, they didn't mention any of these things. It's a little bit underhanded, I believe," Watson said.

The B.C. Community Football Association told CBC News it knows of several other football clubs complaining about cuts to their grants.

No one from the Ministry of Housing and Social Development was available for comment on the weekend.