Who exactly gets to vote on which concept Germany will use to apply for the Summer Olympics? A controversial question has been answered.
After No from the people of Hamburg There are still three German Olympic candidates left to submit their own application. Berlin, Munich and Cologne/Rhine-Ruhr want to host the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044.
How exactly the German candidate will be selected was unclear for a long time. But the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) has now decided.
Fricke: “The Olympic ones Member associations will decide”
Only a reduced group will be allowed to vote at the extraordinary DOSB general meeting on September 26th in Baden-Baden – to be seen live on Erste. CEO Otto Fricke said on Sunday on NDR that the “Olympic member associations” would decide.
Conversely, this means: The other member organizations of the DOSB have no voting rights. These include the 16 state sports associations, the 28 non-Olympic leading associations and the 17 associations with special tasks.
Ambiguities due to paragraph 16 in the DOSB statutes
The DOSB statutes left room for interpretation. On the one hand, it says that the general meeting of members, including non-Olympic organizations, decides on an application for the Olympic Games. This is how the DOSB has handled all previous votes in the application process.
On the other hand, paragraph 16 states that in “matters relating to the Olympic Games” only the leading Olympic associations are entitled to vote, currently there are 42. So what counts for the decision in September?
Three votes per central association
Most recently, the DOSB said that they wanted to have this question examined legally. Apparently this has now happened. As long as nothing else is decided at the extraordinary general meeting, paragraph 16 applies, said a DOSB spokesman on Monday in response to a Sportschau request. This has already been communicated internally and externally.
The paragraph also states that every association has three votes, regardless of its size. This is a serious difference to other votes, where the largest associations have five votes, while small associations with fewer than 100,000 members only have one.
Eight personal DOSB members entitled to vote
In Baden-Baden, the ten members of the DOSB Presidium and eight personal members of the DOSB are also allowed to vote. They each have one vote.
The personal members are committed sports personalities and are elected by the general meeting. Of the current twelve personal members, only eight are allowed to vote. The DOSB specified an ongoing active career or an Olympic participation that was not more than three cycles ago as the selection criteria.
Accordingly, footballer Leon Goretzka (2016 Olympic silver medalist) and former track cyclist Kristina Vogel, for example, are allowed to vote.
| Member | Sport/function | Eligible to vote |
|---|---|---|
Moritz Prince | hockey | Yes |
Elena Gilles | Canoe polo | Yes |
Leon Goretzka | football | Yes |
Jonathan Lackhoff | rowing | Yes |
Yusra Mardini | To swim | no |
Anna Schaffelhuber | Para-ski | Yes |
Manuela Schmermund | Para-sport shooter | Yes |
Kristina Vogel | Track cycling | Yes |
Marc Zwiebler | badminton | Yes |
Veronica Grimm | scientist | no |
Alexander Otto | Sports promoter | no |
Klaus Steinbach | Swimmer/Official | no |
Olympic Central associations in a strong role
The leading Olympic associations now play a very important role: First, they evaluate the three concepts together with the DOSB, using criteria such as “sports suitability” or “international competitiveness”.
Based on this assessment, an evaluation commission will make a recommendation; politicians, the DOSB and the leading Olympic associations each have two members.
With this non-binding recommendation on the table, the leading Olympic associations will then vote in Baden-Baden. Through the application of paragraph 16, their influence has increased significantly; they have 126 of the 144 votes.
Possible biases
But if the result is narrow, it could also depend on the individuals – and that at the latest raises questions about bias. For example, DOSB Vice President Jens-Peter Nettekoven is a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, his CDU party colleague Hendrik Wüst is a face of the application from Cologne/Rhine-Ruhr.
According to the regulations, Michael Mronz is also allowed to cast a vote. As a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), he is represented in his office on the DOSB Presidium. He was once the idea behind the Olympic initiative on the Rhine and Ruhr and is managing director of Reitturnier GmbH in Aachen, where the equestrian competitions are to take place in the Rhine-Ruhr concept.
The process surrounding Germany’s Olympic bid has been going on for many years, but the election campaign is only now entering the decisive phase.
