In a world of politically calculated funding that is becoming as intrigue-ridden as anything envisaged in John Le Carre’s shadowlands, leading practitioners of one of our most popular sports are fortunate to be able to consider themselves Smillie’s people.

Put another way, the application of vast experience of the world of sport has ensured that UK Sport’s potentially calamitous decision to withdraw all support for the GB Badminton programme means the future of top Scottish players Kirsty Gilmour and Adam Hall should be safeguarded.

The simple explanation is that Anne Smillie, BadmintonScotland’s chief executive, understands sporting politics more than well enough to have ensured that her organisation is not overly dependent on any one income source.

She knows, too, that, not least because GB Badminton is inevitably appealing the decision after it, albeit in unexpected fashion, achieved its Rio Olympics target of winning a medal when Englishmen Chris Langridge and Marcus Ellis made their shock run to the men’s doubles final, it would be folly to comment on a situation that has caused considerable consternation among those who want to see sport maximise its capacity for good.

Most obviously, in terms of funding priorities, the contrast is deeply shocking between the treatment of badminton - one of the world’s most popular sports that can be played in gym and church halls all over the country while boasting particular appeal among ethnic minorities - with the more than £6.5 million allocated to Modern Pentathlon - for which access to horses as well as fencing and shooting lessons are a requirement for budding competitors - in spite of its failure to achieve its Rio target.

Nor is this a new phenomenon as both basketball and volleyball administrators can testify, the global popularity of their sports pretty much counting against them when compared with those in which medal tables can be manipulated by out-spending rival countries in sports with limited popular appeal.

Badminton’s problem, in the eyes of those fixated on medals and statistical indicators of their likelihood, may be a relative unpredictability. This year’s success for Langridge and Ellis was even more unexpected than that of Imogen Bankier and Chris Adcock when reaching the World Championship final five years ago.

However failure to understand the benefit for those doubles pairs of being involved in, or even just alongside an environment that was aspiring to excellence shows as much ignorance of what matters in terms of creating truly successful sporting cultures as focusing the spending of public money on medal success rather than participation in the first instance.

There are, admittedly, knock on issues for one of the top Scots that Smillie must address. While Gilmour has admirably shown leadership by using her status as Scotland’s leading player to speak out against the decision by UK Sport, she was already Glasgow based. Hall’s problem, albeit one the 20-year-old doubles specialist had already acknowledged would have to be addressed ahead of the Commonwealth Games when he will need a Scottish partner, is the effect on his burgeoning partnership with Englishman Peter Mills which saw them reach the final of the Scottish Open Grand Prix in only their fifth tournament together.

If she does not yet know the solution Smillie is clear about what needs to be done.

“We have two athletes at the moment on the GB programme,” she said.

“It now means Kirsty’s athlete performance allowance (apa) has gone. Her competition costs are no longer covered and we need to look at that. Adam Hall was starting a new partnership with Peter Ellis. His coaching, apa and tournament costs are now gone and he’ll be sent up here.

“We need to take stock because our eye is on the Commonwealth Games so Tat Meng Wong (their newly recruited Malaysian coach who starts work next month) will have to look at where we are. Come April, unless the appeal is upheld, Adam will be back in Scotstoun and the coach will have to decide what to do with him in terms of partnerships. What we need to do is fund Adam to ensure there is medal success at Commonwealth Games.”

There is assurance in her delivery of that message predicated on having built important partnerships domestically.

“We will have discussions with SportScotland and Mike Whittingham at the Institute of Sport and I’ve got to say that they’ve been so supportive. We’re in a good place,” said Smillie.

“If you consider where we are this is not the end of the world for us. It’s a blow, but we will survive. We’ve got a fantastic national training centre, we’ve recruited a world class coach with a proven track record, we’ve got, in Robert Blair, a world class player who is now one of our apprentice coaches and he is so inspirational to the youth coming up. We’ve got young players coming through and a World Champs round the corner that will give us the chance to inspire thousands of youngsters.

“I think Badminton Scotland’s in a good place, it’s just most unfortunate that we’ve got this situation.”

It was not always thus, Smillie having come through some challenging times with the national agency when having to battle for funding in the past. However she believes that what has turned that around has been the same thing that saw her head to the Badminton World Federation (BWF) last year bidding to host the Sudirman Cup, world mixed team event, only to be asked instead to stage those 2017 World Championships, namely a recognition of her organisation’s performance, having repeatedly followed through on promises of a capacity to achieve excellence.

“I think one thing about BadmintonScotland is they deliver on what they say they’re going to deliver,” Smillie asserted.

“We say ‘this is our plan, this is how we’re going to get there, just watch us,’ and the funding partners, whether commercial partners or the government, know with confidence that badminton will deliver and it has never let anyone down.

“Come what may the funding we’ve had we’ve been clever in how we allocate it. We’ve been careful, prudent, thinking of the whole picture between now and the Gold Coast (Commonwealth Games in 2018) and beyond, so no matter what this ship will sail and it will have enough fuel on board to get us to where we want to go with success at the other end.”

She is in Dubai this weekend lobbying the BWF and its sponsorship agent with a view to acquiring additional investment in next year’s World Championships which will bring the sport’s greatest players to Glasgow.

Whether or not she is immediately successful there is a clarity in the sense of purpose of a woman whose love of her sport has previously seen her turn down what some would see as bigger jobs, which underwrites her confidence.

In that context it was telling that three days after UK Sport’s shock announcement, Badminton Scotland was issuing a much more upbeat message about a major broadcasting breakthrough with five Chinese provincial television channels having agreed to show next year’s Scottish Open Grand Prix which brings free access to a market to which others must pay to gain entry.

“Why do we want to get into the Chinese market… because it opens many doors,” said Smillie, explaining that this has been a goal for the past decade.

“Not just the commercial opportunities that open themselves up for BadmintonScotland, but even for our funding partners at Event Scotland.

“They want to attract the Chinese people to Scotland and Glasgow wants to attract the Chinese people and there are so many business discussions that can be on-going as a result. One of the things I’ll be discussing with the BWF this week is that Total, the major sponsor, is going to invite 80 of its VVVIPs to come to Glasgow to enjoy the World Champs and some sight-seeing.

“They will include many Chinese businessmen because the Chinese market is where Total is investing a lot of its money and time. So we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet here. Getting into that market is very difficult, but once you’re in there then the world’s your oyster.”

These remain tough times for the sport, then, but things could be much worse for Scottish badminton and its top players than they are right now.