As time runs out and no new money comes in, Great Britain faces an immediate and increasing risk of losing some of the best coaches in Olympic sport. Steve Foley, the performance director of British Diving, has been poached by USA Diving and the problem faced by British sport is that, while the finances remain unresolved, more may follow him.

This was the message from Lord Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), when addressing the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Westminster yesterday. “We need to hire the best coaches in the world,” he said. “But our sports governing bodies can only do that if they can offer long-term contracts.”

The timing is the issue. At this stage after every Games, the transfer market for coaches across the Olympic sports is at its peak and Britain has pulled off one significant coup in swimming, with Dennis Pursley, formerly head coach of USA Swimming for 14 years, to fill the same role in Britain. However, the risk is that the traffic may soon be moving more in the opposite direction. Foley is not alone in having left to work abroad; Shaun Caven, the canoeing head coach, has gone to work in the United States too.

The problem is the shortfall in funding. Even before the Beijing Olympics, the Government was £79 million short on the longstanding promises it made for funding through to 2012 and while that remains the case, as other nations are busily recruiting, the governing bodies of the same sports here in Britain are unable to guarantee their budgets and are thus struggling to compete in the market for the top coaches.

The Government has until early December to deliver. If there is still a shortfall, then UK Sport, the funding organisation, will have to decide where to make cuts. However, while time marches on, so will activity in the transfer market.

Olympic coaches are by no means a highly paid breed. For instance, one British coach, whose athlete won a medal in Beijing, has this week been offered a new contract on £45,000 a year. Only those at the very top will command wages anywhere near £100,000. This makes coaches vulnerable to overseas offers.

So “continuity of funding”, Moynihan told the committee yesterday, is what is most important in this time of uncertainty. “The governing bodies are in the process of securing the coaches,” he said. “It has been so far, so good.”

Indeed, Shane Sutton, the cycling head coach, and Paul Thompson, the rowing coach, have been courted by Australia and declined all offers. Jürgen Grobler, the rowing head coach, was also tapped up before the Beijing Games and is also staying.

Furthermore, besides Pursley, British sports have recruited Christian Felkel, the German rowing coach who has been working in South Africa, and Charles van Commenee, the Dutchman, as head coach of UK Athletics.

However, this good news is largely restricted to the “big” British Olympic sports, which, on Monday, were given early predictions of their funding status quo post-December. If the Government cannot find the promised £79 million, the cuts that will be made will be felt in the sports that are less traditionally the deliverers of medals. And these sports are arguably the ones that would benefit from the best coaching expertise.

Simon Clegg, the chief executive of the BOA, told the committee yesterday of the importance of continuing to fund volleyball, basketball, water polo and handball because these were the sports that, with perseverance, Britain could win medals in at the 2016 Games or at Olympics farther down the line. However, these are the sports that must be in fear of the cold reality of the economic crisis: they are expensive, they are unlikely to provide medals in 2012 and that makes them sitting ducks.

The Government’s intention was always that its final, pledged £100 million funding package would be raised from the private sector. So far £21 million has been found — but from the National Lottery. With two months until deadline, there could not be a worse time to be looking to raise money to fulfil an expensive promise.