Two days after the Federal Government-commissioned Crawford Report called for a massive shake-up of Australian sporting structures and the way we think about sport, 24 leaders from 19 sports gathered at Parliament House yesterday for the inaugural Captain's Forum.

But the report and the highly divisive recommendations for funding redistribution weren't on the agenda.

The timing of the meeting, a joint initiative of the Australian Sports Commission and the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, in the same week as the report's release was coincidental.

No doubt wary of any of the sporting leaders speaking off topic, when the group appeared before the media instructions were given that questions could only be put to three spokespeople, Geelong Cats premiership-winning captain Tom Harley, Australian netball team captain Sharelle McMahon and chairman of the hall of fame John Bertrand, skipper of America's Cup-winning yacht Australia II.

Furthermore, questions were not to stray beyond the scope of the forum, which essentially resolved that the sporting leaders together use their profiles to inspire more people to take up sport.

When Harley was asked about the report anyway and its suggestion sports such as AFL should receive more funding and Olympic sports less, he pleaded ignorance.

''It's sort of been the white elephant in the room, but ... I'm not qualified to talk about the Crawford Report specifically because I don't know enough about it.

''What today was about was getting all the sports together and finding out a common theme and a common set of values everyone could work towards. Funding and all those sorts of things are not our area to debate really.''

Standing behind Harley were several sporting leaders who would quite probably have very strong opinions. Among them were 10 Olympians, including champion swimmers Libby Trickett and Grant Hackett and water polo player James Stanton, whose sport was criticised by Crawford for receiving as much funding as golf, tennis and lawn bowls combined.