Anyone wondering about the multi-million-pound “gap to close” alluded to this week by Andy Hunt, the British Olympic Association’s chief executive, could do worse than visit the Team 2012 website.

Click on "Partners" and you find only Visa; click on "Patrons" and you find only Dr Chai Patel, former chief executive of the Priory Group, the specialist mental health and education services concern; click on "Donors" and you find nine empty silhouettes.

Only the "Ambassadors" segment is well-tenanted, featuring nine real "mug-shots", ranging from Hamish Stevenson, founder of Fast Track, to Steve Norris, the former London Mayoralty candidate.

With less than 18 months to go before London 2012 and with tickets about to go on sale, how the BOA must be hoping to identify more Dr Patels.

"I am happy asking lots of people to donate because it is very important," he told insidethegames when contacted today.

"I have agreed to donate up to the Olympics, then I’ll see what happens," he said, describing his contribution as "a substantial sum"

Minutes of a 2010 BOA Board Meeting, seen by inidethegames, suggest (though not conclusively) that a Patron contributes £1 million ($1.6 million) over three years, while Ambassadors chip in (or will raise) £100,000 ($163,000) a year and Donors at least £25,000 ($41,000).

The total raised so far, according to the website, is £13.4 million ($21.8 million).

Given that Team 2012 - which brings together London 2012, UK Sport and the British Paralympic Association, as well as the BOA - was set up in an effort to plug a £50 million ($81 million) shortfall in funding for British athletes, it is not enough.

If private donors don’t step up to the plate - and, with excitement mounting, it seems reasonable to expect the trickle of contributions to speed up somewhat in months to come, in spite of the anaemic economy - the BOA has a number of options.

It could scale back the size of the Olympic/Paralympic team, which is set to be massive, as befits a host nation.

It is, however, utterly determined not to do this - and, for what it is worth, I would support them in this uncompromising stance.

It could trim support services for the team, though anyone set to be judged on the basis of the Team GB medals haul at the Games has a strong incentive to resist this, since such cuts run the risk of turning golds into silvers and bronzes into also-rans.

It could pare back other areas of the BOA budget, although I doubt this would be easy in the run-up to a Games on home soil and with costs having already come under heavy scrutiny in 2009 and 2010.

Finally, it could redouble its efforts to extract more from the Joint Marketing Programme Agreement (JMPA) under which commercial sponsorship rights for the period up to and including the Games have been sold to LOCOG.

Regular readers of insidethegames might remember the eloquence with which Hunt has in the past described how this agreement hems him in, leaving him "horribly constrained".

"I describe it as my hands are handcuffed behind my back," he told me.

"They are then tied with baling twine over the top of my head.

"And then I’m bound in a straightjacket, put in a metal cage and it’s called the Joint Marketing Programme Agreement with LOCOG."

As I revealed in November  there is also evidence of a $8 million ($13 million) dispute between the BOA and LOCOG that may have something to do with the JMPA.

A statement regarding Hunt’s "gap" that the BOA prepared for me today certainly suggests that, while the rhetoric may have changed, the body’s sentiments towards the fateful agreement haven’t.

"We have a robust financial plan in place for 2011 and 2012," the BOA told me, "and we are now implementing that plan with the support and participation of our corporate partners, as well as through fundraising programmes such as Team 2012.

"These programmes will enable the BOA to provide British athletes and coaches with the resources and support they need to excel in London 2012 - which we expect will be the most competitive Olympic Games in history.

"All of this is being done despite dealing with the financial constraints of a JMPA with the London 2012 Organising Committee that delivers less than half the revenue the Canadian Olympic Committee received through its agreement with the Vancouver 2010 Organising Committee."

So, keep your eye on that running total on the Team 2012 website.

My forecast? The BOA will muddle through in archetypically British fashion, with the help of some increase in private contributions, a few cutbacks both to its non-2012-specific activities and the level of back-up services supplied to the 2012 team and a few extra coppers squeezed out of LOCOG.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938