Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to continue to avoid funding cuts for German sport.
“I am very confident that we will not have to accept any compromises in the core areas of sports funding, especially in the funding of the FES and IAT, in the coming year.”said the SPD politician at the parliamentary evening on Wednesday (September 20th, 2023) in Berlin.
Faeser had already indicated this the previous week at the sports ministers’ conference in Herzogenaurach. “This is very important for the athletes, especially with a view to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”continues Faeser: “The discussions with the members of the German Bundestag are very positive with regard to sport. That’s why I can say that we are working on very good solutions so that we don’t have to make any cuts.”
Cuts should amount to 27 million euros
The traffic light government presented its draft for the 2024 federal budget in July and received a lot of criticism from sports. The original plan was to reduce the funding for sport by 27 million euros from 303 to 276 million. This now seems off the table.
The funding for the Institute for Applied Training Science (IAT) in Leipzig and the Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment (FES) in Berlin alone would have shrunk by four million euros. The two facilities are extremely important for, among other things, material development.
Criticism of PotAS
Faeser also emphasized that he wanted to further develop the controversial potential analysis system (PotAS) and integrate it into the planned independent sports agency. “We will also drastically reduce bureaucracy in this area so that the successes and potential are once again the focus of the evaluation. I think this is important so that we can improve.”said the 53-year-old.
PotAS in its current form has been criticized for a long time. The PotAS analysis sees athletics as the frontrunner in the current summer sports ranking and therefore particularly promising and worthy of support; basketball is at the bottom of the 26 sports.
The team sensationally won gold at the World Championships at the beginning of the month, while German athletics remained without a medal at the World Championships in Hungary.