MOpposition politician Stephan Mayer initially held back his criticism of the government when parliament discussed the federal government’s 15th sports report on Thursday. He spoke of the “golden years of Germany’s sports policy” and the temptation to praise the fact that more money than ever flowed into top-class sport in the years 2018 to 2021, that the increase in sports funding was steeper than ever, so many new projects had never been started. The CSU deputy refrained from the point of his joke. During the reporting period, he was Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior and thus responsible for sports policy under Interior Minister Horst Seehofer from the CSU.
On behalf of his parliamentary group, Mayer expressly agreed with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser that she repeatedly criticized the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian athletes to compete in international sports again. He would have liked a similarly clear attitude from the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), said Mayer, accusing him of messing around and only getting the curve at the last moment.
What he had to criticize, in addition to the fact that the minister wore the One Love armband at the soccer World Cup in Qatar, which the team was banned from, can be found in the sports report, if at all, in the future tense. Mayer therefore took the coalition agreement as a benchmark and, as was his job as the opposition’s first speaker, settled accounts with the sports policy of the traffic light coalition. The peak of movement: “a hit in the water”. The 25 million euros for the “restart” of the 87,000 sports clubs after the pandemic: “blundering” and exceeded by the Free State of Bavaria alone with 40 million euros. The commendable Center for Safe Sport: the continuation of the project started by the grand coalition including Mayer. The independent agency for financing elite sport: rejected by the states and not in the interest of the legislator. The Sports Funding Act: strangling ankle bracelets.
There is a lack of halls and places, supervisors
As the first speaker in this first hour-long parliamentary debate, Nancy Faeser had promised on the occasion of the sports report: “The traffic light will get Germany moving.” Sport is an important part of holistic education. Your finding that clubs are losing members and income, that there is a lack of coaches and trainers, is only half correct. These days, the state sports associations are not only reporting pleasing growth figures, but even such a rush that many clubs are keeping waiting lists because there are no halls and places or supervisors. Berlin took the lead on Thursday, the day of the parliamentary debate: with an increase of 6.6 percent to almost 630,000 members, which is well above the pre-pandemic level. Women between the ages of 19 and 26 are responsible for the greatest growth with 16.3 percent and women between the ages of 27 and 40 with 9.7 percent. Almost exactly one third of the memberships in Berlin’s sports clubs are now women. The two Bundesliga clubs Union (plus 21 percent to 49,000) and Hertha (13/45,000) have the strongest influx in the capital.
The construction and renovation of sports facilities only take up two pages of the 226-page sports report, complained André Hahn from the left. The traffic light has not yet created any funding for sports facilities owned by the clubs – a relief for the public sector. Several speakers showed their appreciation for voluntary commitment in sport. “Thanks, people. Without you, everything would stand still,” said Green Tina Winklmann. “You make the sport something very special,” praised Philipp Hartewig (FDP).
Analysis of failure required
In the sports report, the government calls for “more coherence between public funds and the potential for medals and finals at the Olympic and Paralympic Games”. Although the federal government has increased its funding to 373 million euros (as of 2022), there has been a constant downward trend at the Summer Olympics since Barcelona in 1992 with 82 medals (Tokyo 2022: 37).
The government described the Olympic Games as a “great idea” and claims to have been asked to apply by the International Olympic Committee. But she also calls for an analysis of the failure of seven unsuccessful attempts – most recently with the presentation of summer games on the Rhine and Ruhr, which the DOSB and the federal government treated as a private initiative. The umbrella organization of sports has long since set up a six-person department for the Olympic application and is planning a referendum on September 1, 2024 – the outcome of which will probably be judged in the next sports report from the federal government.