Scottish handball player Lynn McCafferty fears her Olympic dream is over after UK Sport revealed British Handball would receive funding cuts.

The government agency charged with distributing funding to all Olympic sports came up £50million short of its projected £600m budget and handball was one of the major casualties.

It is not clear how big a chunk will be taken off the £2.99m British Handball received for the Beijing Olympics but McCafferty believes any cuts will be disastrous.

“We had every hope, dream and wish for handball to be big in the UK, but we really have to qualify for 2012 as otherwise there will be no media coverage,” she said.

“That was part of being at 2012, it wasn’t just the dream of going, it was about taking back what we have learned from training in Denmark to Britain so handball can continue to grow.

“Right now I find the news devastating as we have done extremely well and achieved all the targets that UK Sport set for us.

“Funding is a massive part of our progress and without it we’re a little bit lost right now.”

The news comes just days after McCafferty scored five for Great Britain in their World Championship qualifier 25-23 victory against Greece in Holland.