With regard to human rights, German sports policy seems to have room for improvement. Sport offers the potential to strengthen human rights.
When it comes to human rights, sport rarely comes off well. Reports about exploitation on the construction sites for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, cooperation with authoritarian states like China at the Olympics, Evictions to build stadiums in Brazil. The list of human rights violations in the name of sport is long.
Age, fitness, origin – none of that matters
In the international meeting place in Bonn Gronau, all of this is very far away. Every Friday, Mercedes Franzen opens the door to the large hall and presents a huge one Bluetoothbox at the end of the room. She positions herself in front of it, claps her hands and beams at the course participants. It starts: music with lots of bass and high tempo booms through the hall.
Franzen, about 1.60 meters tall, with dark curls, moves to the beat. A good ten people stand in front of her and follow her every move. “LatinFit” is the name of the course that Franzen leads. Everyone is welcome. Age, fitness, origin – none of that matters. Franzen comes from Costa Rica, one of the participants comes from Ukraine, another from Italy, the other from Belarus. Communication with words is sometimes bumpy, but that’s not a problem.
“I believe sport brings people together”says Ruddy Acurio Cruzas she stands at the edge of the hall after the course with her mat under her arm. She has been coming to the meeting center every Friday for about three months with her nine-year-old daughter. “Sport is like a language in which everyone understands each other. There are no differences when it comes to movement and dance.”she says.
Sport can violate and strengthen human rights
Sport can be like that too. He can bring people together. Social hierarchies that divide into “some” and “others”, “you belong” and “you don’t” are paused. Sport can connect and strengthen self-confidence and help overcome trauma. So: bring human rights to life.
Sport can do both: violate human rights and strengthen them. Which of these roles he takes on is influenced by political conditions. How is German sports policy doing in this regard? “There are approaches, but definitely no coherent overall construct on human rights in the federal government’s sports policy.”says Viktoria Krüger, President of the “Center for Human Rights and Sport” association. The NGO advocates for respect and protection of human rights in sport.
In the context of human rights, it is important to take the different areas of sport into account. The topic is often associated with top events on the international stage, “Human rights violations can also occur during the local club’s Everyman Run”says Krüger: “For example, when people are not admitted or even actively excluded because of individual characteristics.”
In fact, the list of known human rights violations is long in the area of popular sports, but they are rarely named as such. Cases of abuse of power, sexual violence, the exclusion of people with disabilities and racism are human rights issues. How could German sports policy address them?
Human rights in popular sports
Sunbal Mahmood from the German Sports Youth deals with racism in association and club structures. “In order to notice and punish incidents of racism more quickly, two measures are needed above all: awareness-raising and independent reporting and advisory structures.”said Mahmood. This is also recommended by sports sociologists at the University of Wuppertal, who examined racism in clubs as part of a study. Such measures would require the necessary funding from politicians, said Mahmood.
Similar interventions could also help with other human rights issues in popular sport. The long-term funding of corresponding projects, as Mahmood calls for, is one way to implement them. Another would be to make human rights policies and corresponding implementation measures a condition for receiving funding, says Viktoria Krüger. After all, almost every club and association is dependent on public money.
Support for popular sports is organized at the state political level. But Krüger also sees opportunities for action by the federal government. This determines the funding conditions in top-class sport and could send a signal to organized sport as a whole through comparable measures in this area.
There are already various projects, such as the federal program “Integration through Sport”, which support anti-discrimination work and violence prevention in clubs with public money. The “LatinFit” course in Bonn is also financed by the city sports association. However, such projects are often tied to a limited duration and depend on the commitment of individuals; there is a lack of a coherent overall strategy on human rights in sport, says Krüger: “There is no clear commitment to human rights due diligence. Dealing with human rights risks in sport is not specifically addressed.”
No clear strategy
Instead of in the context of popular sports, human rights have so far been discussed in German sports policy primarily when it comes to major sporting events. This is also the case in the draft of the Sports Promotion Act, which the Federal Chancellery published in October. However, it does not contain a clear obligation to comply with human rights due diligence. The federal government is also currently working on a “Guideline for human rights and major sporting events”.
Despite the efforts, Krüger also sees a need for improvement in this area. For example, experiences from previous major events have not yet been systematically documented. This could help with the organization of upcoming competitions. In addition, for example, the human rights declaration and the complaints office it set up for the 2024 European Football Championship were published too late.
Federal Government expects “fundamental” compliance with human rights
All of this suggests that the issue of human rights does not have the necessary priority in German sports policy. This impression is also given by the federal government’s stance on the men’s World Cup, which will take place next year in Canada, Mexico and the USA.
In October, members of the Greens party made a small request to the federal government about human rights at the tournament, among other things because of the increasingly authoritarian overtones in US politics. In the response, the federal government writes that it fundamentally expects the organizers to respect human rights.
“Elusive and defensive”says Krüger. In order to actively promote compliance with human rights around the World Cup, the federal government should urgently develop its own human rights-based sports policy and then demand this from other states. To do this, she should use discussions with the host states now, says Krüger. At Sportschau’s request, the Federal Chancellery said that the federal government was in contact with the host countries, but generally did not comment on the content of confidential discussions.
Active action against human rights violations in popular sports, the establishment of human rights due diligence obligations at top sporting events and the unequivocal commitment to human rights at the diplomatic level – all of these strands could be part of a human rights-led sports policy. However, there does not yet seem to be a holistic strategy that thinks all of this together in Germany.