The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) wants to get the citizens moving again – with a movement summit and many new impulses. The catalog of demands on politicians, the key issues paper of the DOSB contribution, which he published on Tuesday (05/24/22) under the title “Sport moves Germany” submitted. Of the DOSB sees it as “interview offer” to politics.
Not just competitive sports
Together with politicians, the sports umbrella organization wants to work out the sports development plan included in the coalition paper. In the coalition agreement of the traffic light parties SPDGreen and FDP It had already become clear that the new government wanted to introduce a different sports policy than the previous one: “Sports for everyone” is the motto, which was underlined in the federal budget with almost 500 million euros for popular sport.
“Successful competitive sport must not be the sole goal of federal politics and sports funding”also states DOSB stated in the preamble of his paper. The umbrella organization, in which mass sport has led a rather shadowy existence in recent years, is now coming back to old demands: Sport must be seen and, above all, treated as a cross-departmental task. And not just to prevent overlaps or projects running in parallel.
“This silo action allows political strategies and investment programs to be partially effective at best”, write the authors. Mass sport must “getting the attention and resources he deserves due to his outstanding social importance” deserve.
Sport should be part of the constitution
Therefore, the association renewed the call for the inclusion of sport, exercise and competitive sport in the Basic Law. So far, the federal government has only been responsible for top-class sport. In addition, a state secretary should be based in the Federal Chancellery, who should take over the overall coordination for sport.
This demand is not least due to the jurisdictional wrangling between politics and sport in recent years. Of the DOSB therefore requires one “Paradigm shift in nationwide sports policy” – The federal and state governments have already introduced this at least verbosely at the conference of sports ministers in Hamburg.
In his paper he leads DOSB Systematically picks up key issues, some of which have been occupying him for years. Many of the cornerstones are already in the strategy paper “DOSB 2020 – The strong voice of sport” to be found, but where the focus was on top-class Olympic sports.
impulses to the outside
Not only the tone, but also the target direction seem to change in the DOSB to have changed. But there are many old topics: health promotion, strengthening democracy, volunteering, the club as a sports and socialization space, sports facility renovation, climate and sustainability – long-running issues in German sport. They are all to be thought of in a new or different way – above all by politicians.
When reading the paper, it quickly becomes clear that the impulses are directed outwards – which can also be understood as a demand for more funding. However, sport has to answer many questions itself and clarify them internally with its member organizations, for example on the subject of climate and sustainability: The professional associations are the ones who can contribute to reducing the CO2 footprint, for example by restructuring their league operations.
It is the associations that have to decide in all areas what is to be implemented and exemplified in the clubs. It remains to be seen whether the potential that sport believes it has will also have the desired impact on mass sport. The paper lacks references to model projects, evaluation or field reports.
The path to the sporting turning point is at least being considered. Walking it will take time. And it’s going to be expensive. Sports economists like Lutz Thieme from the Koblenz University of Applied Sciences expect more than two billion euros for sports facilities and, for example, decarbonization. “This will be a sum that is well in excess of the annual funds required for the pure renovation of the sports facilities.”says Thieme. “And then there are the rest of the grants.”