British Swimming is prepared to triple its elite coaching budget to a figure that could be more than £5 million over the four years before the London Olympics in 2012. That is the price to be paid for a plan to hire six world-class experts when Bill Sweetenham departs as performance director.

Sweetenham took the helm of the national team in 2000 after Britain returned from the Sydney Olympics empty-handed. The Australian, who will leave when his contract expires immediately after the 2008 Olympic Games, told The Times: “I have told British Swimming that I will not be staying after Beijing.”

David Sparkes, the British Swimming chief executive, confirmed only in part what sources in the United States, Australia and Europe have revealed: that Kelvin Juba, a former British club coach and now a consultant, has been travelling far and wide as a scout seeking six elite coaches at a cost of between £150,000 and £200,000 a head per year each. One of those will replace Sweetenham at the helm.

Declining to confirm the figures, Sparkes said: “I rule nothing in and I rule nothing out. We have given some thought to the style of leadership and management we need after 2008 . . . we do not want someone who will ‘dissemble’ Bill’s work but rather build on the great job he has done for us.”

Talk of six coaches tallies with the blueprint that Sweetenham proposed to British Swimming at least two years ago: Britain needed to establish six to eight elite coaching centres around the country, he said, to train not only athletes but home coaches by the end of 2006. There is arguably just one centre, at Loughborough, that at present meets the Australian’s criteria.

Sparkes confirmed that the federation wishes to “populate” the new centres – at a time when new 50-metre pools are opening in Liverpool, Leeds and Sunderland to bolster centres at Loughborough, Swansea and Edinburgh – with world-class centres.

Foreign coaches are being targeted, though members of the elite coaching staff have not been ruled out. Indeed, “most of the current team” would be retained.

Sweetenham confirmed that he had offered to act as a consultant after Beijing. Sparkes said that the board of British Swimming would be “happy to retain Bill’s services” but any decision would be “entirely down to the new man at the helm on the deck”.

The Australian would like to play a role “if people are happy to have me there”, Sweetenham said, because he had faith in British swimmers and coaches who could now boast eight girls and three boys born in 1988 or later ranked in the world top three in 14 Olympic events, not counting relays.

Francesca Halsall, of Liverpool, who at 15 was a European medley relay champion for Britain and Commonwealth medal-winner for England last year, has been the fastest of her age in the world over 100 metres freestyle for the past two years.

Among those who have been approached for a post-2008 role are Gennadi Touretski, the Russian who coached Alexander Popov to four Olympic gold medals. In 2001, Touretski was suspended on full pay after a safe stolen from his house by thieves before being recovered by police was found to have contained banned substances. Charges of steroid possession were dropped after the coach explained that the small quantity of a drug out of bounds in sport was in fact prescription medication for Touretski’s mother-in-law.

The coach returned to his job but the next year left to lead the Switzerland team. The Russian was also taken to task by Australian Swimming after he allegedly hit a fellow passenger on a flight while said to be under the influence of vodka.

Among others said to be on the wish list is Stephen Widmer, the Swiss coach who turned Libby Lenton and Leisel Jones, of Australia, into world champions and record-holders; Peter Banks, of the United States, who coached Brooke Bennett to three Olympic-distance freestyle titles for the US, and Orjan Madsen, of Norway, who has a contract with Germany until the Beijing Games, are also believed to be on the wish list.

Sparkes said that British Swimming has a “finite budget” but it is prepared to pay what is necessary to attract world-class coaches. Market forces dictate that leading coaches in the US and Australia demand a higher wage. The present budget for elite coaching in all three home nations in Britain tops £500,000, with Sweetenham the only one to earn a six-figure salary.

Sparkes will tell his board next month that a report for UK Sport by Deloitte, the accountancy firm, comparing the wage bills of a variety of UK sports will deliver a verdict of “fair” for swimming. “We do not underpay and we don’t overpay,” he said.

The increase of funding due to arrive from UK Sport as the stakes get higher in preparation for the London Olympics in 2012 presents an opportunity, Sparkes said. Value for money is paramount but there is scope for the coaching budget to increase significantly.

Should world-class coaches be hired for six-figure sums, newly recruited American coaches such as Bud McAllister may well feel the urge to ask for a significant rise in their salaries. The former coach to Janet Evans, the US legend who won four Olympic gold medals and was the world record-holder over 400, 800 and 1,500m freestyle (two of those standards have survived since the 1980s), McAllister has only just arrived in Britain and was recruited for significantly less money than the figures being talked about back in his home country.

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