There is good news for sport: just as the draft bill left the Federal Ministry of the Interior, it will not become the first sports funding law in the Federal Republic. The most influential MPs in the traffic light coalition are convinced of this. However: The loud indignation of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) was poorly received in political Berlin.
It is astonishing how high the association’s representatives have climbed, commented a member of the small group of budget policy reporters and sports policy speakers who discussed the matter last week together with Parliamentary State Secretary Mahmut Özdemir. Another asked in exasperation whether the DOSB wanted to write laws that affect it itself.
Bundestag wants to wear its hat
The mood is tense and the prospects are not good. “We are not putting 300 million euros in a black box,” says FDP MP Thorsten Lieb, rejecting the sport’s demand to reduce the influence of politics on the agency. There is agreement in the coalition that the Bundestag has the hat and parliamentarians have a seat and vote on the agency’s board of trustees.
The sports organizations’ demand that the federal government commit itself to promoting top-class sport by law and set the funding amount, which currently amounts to 300 million euros from the Ministry of the Interior alone, has not met with a positive response.
The MPs point out that Finance Minister Christian Lindner is calling for further savings for the 2025 budget. There is speculation that cuts amount to 25 billion euros. The situation is dramatic and sport will not be able to remain exempt from it, they say. The excitement surrounding the cuts planned for 2024 was a mild breeze compared to what was to come.
“We insist on implementation”
Lieb’s colleague Martin Gerster from the SPD confirmed to the FAZ when asked that the budget committee’s decision and thus the question of the agency’s economic viability remained a central concern of the parliamentarians: “The draft goes in a good direction. But a regulatory decision is not a collection of ideas. We insist on implementation.”
In October, MPs decided to hold off the creation of the agency until parliamentary control was secured by the supervisory body. They are also calling for an audit of the agency’s economic viability by June 30th. In the draft law, funding for the new structure is announced with 4.5 million euros annually. There is no talk of savings, for example through the abolition of positions in the sports department of the ministry or the closure of the competitive sports area in the DOSB.
There is no mention in the draft of the funding of elite sports by the Bundeswehr and the Federal Police; According to the MPs, it too belongs within the agency’s sphere of influence. The parliamentarians are demanding that the Ministry of the Interior define the goals of the elite sports reform clearly and without contradiction.
The sports funding law should build on this and will, of course, be discussed in the Bundestag. The ministry should prove that there is a need for the planned top sports agency and that setting it up as a foundation would be more economical than other models.
Michael Reinsch Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1 A comment from Michael Reinsch, Berlin Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2 Michael Reinsch, Berlin Published/Updated:
In a press release, the President of the DOSB, Thomas Weikert, called the draft bill “unacceptable”; one will oppose him. The DOSB complained that the Ministry of the Interior was questioning the previously trusting cooperation with this paper.
