The Center for Safe Sport is scheduled to go into regular operation in 2026. In the fight against sexualised, physical and psychological violence in sport, it should also be responsible for sanctions based on a new code. The roadmap that has now been published reveals details of the mammoth project – which still harbors potential for conflict.
Sports policy observers rubbed their eyes in amazement last Thursday when the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) managed a rare feat. The ministry responsible for sport proudly announced that the “roadmap for the development of the Center for Safe Sport is in place” – without publishing the said roadmap.
In the meantime, the house of Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has the “Roadmap” for the contact point in cases of sexualised, psychological and physical violence in sport is still online without further comment. The 76-page document reveals details of a remarkable mammoth project. In view of the dramatic number of cases of interpersonal violence, it is one of the most important in German sport since reunification.
“Safe Sport Code” as a binding set of rules
The facility is scheduled to go into regular operation in 2026 and, according to the plan, will be much more than just a contact point for those affected and whistleblowers. The publication should go hand in hand with a groundbreaking design of sports jurisdiction. On the basis of a “Safe Sport Code”, similar to the code used in the fight against doping, it should also be responsible for sanctioning at the level of sports law – i.e. punishing offenders. This new code should “serve the center and the sport as a binding set of rules,” according to the concept.
“The Center for Safe Sport could maintain internal arbitration to impose sport-specific sanctions,” the paper says cautiously. However, in view of the expected concentration of powers, an accompanying report already states: “It is legally permissible to anchor both the investigative and the sanctioning authority under the same supporting organization. However, it is then absolutely necessary that within the organization a functional and personal There is a distinction between them.”
46 full-time employees
The paper is also already concrete in terms of personnel. Seven “case managers” are to work on up to 25 cases at the same time in the facility and contribute to the clarification with a “clearing office”. 46 people are expected to work full-time for the center. Other pillars of the house in addition to intervention are to be the processing of cases and preventive work.
Where the center should be is still open. It should have the legal form of a registered association and be responsible for top-class and popular sport. The roadmap, it is said, does not represent a “final conception for the future center for safe sport, but it points the way for this”.
Six million euros a year
The facility should cost a good six million euros per year in regular operation. Up to 2026, according to plan, the same total is estimated in the concrete “development phase” (from 2024) and “starting phase” (from 2025). For comparison: The National Anti-Doping Agency costs about twice as much at a good twelve million euros a year. However, the Bonn foundation under civil law spends half of it on operative costs (doping controls and analysis), which are hardly incurred at the Center for Safe Sport.
According to the BMI paper, the federal government will apply to the budget legislature in autumn 2023 for funds to set up and set up the center as part of the Bundestag’s budget deliberations. At the same time, financing talks between the federal government, the states and organized sport are planned.
Dispute about financing programmed
“The participation of the stakeholders in the financing is being coordinated,” the paper states succinctly on the crucial question of who should pay how much. Not only at this point, it can be heard, that there were repeated disagreements and arguments among the 90 actors in the eight-month development of the roadmap, especially between the Ministry of the Interior and the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). Because of the dear money, specifically because of the planned cuts in funding for top-class sport by ten percent to 276 million euros per year, nerves are currently on edge anyway.
With a view to the Center for Safe Sport, the DOSB announced last autumn with disarming implicitness that it would have to be financed “fully and long-term” by the federal government. The umbrella organization referred to the “self-organization of sport”.
However, the vaunted autonomy has often led to protection against perpetrators, especially when it comes to abuse, and increased the suffering of those affected – as in the case of Jan Hempel. The former water jumper had the public with his portrayal of years of abuse by his coach in the ARD documentary “Abused – Sexualised violence in German swimming“shocked. Hempel is currently reserving the right to file a lawsuit against the German Swimming Association (DSV) for organizational negligence.
Athletes Germany raises money through a foundation
Strange things can also be observed in the money already spent on the major “Safe Sport” project. The organization Athleten Deutschland, the main representative of those affected by violence in top-class sport and the idea behind the center in February 2021, collected and donated money from a foundation (Oak Foundation) to finance an expert report on key questions about the project.
The report, prepared by a Frankfurt law firm and co-financed by the BMI and DOSB, should be available by the end of the year. Until then, fine-tuning should continue, including at the conference of sports ministers in mid-September and the DOSB general meeting in early December.