‘No escape! Contribution up with energy surcharge.” At the beginning of May, an alarming message appeared on the website of football and korfball association RKSV Princess Irene from Nistelrode in Brabant. President René van de Ven explains to the thousand members that the association’s old energy contract expired in January.
The board was forced to conclude a flexible, much more expensive contract. RKSV Princess Irene will spend twenty thousand euros more on energy and gas. An energy surcharge on top of the contribution is inevitable, writes Van de Ven, although it is unclear how much extra the members have to pay. Meanwhile, they are asked to be frugal. “Examples of this are: only switch on the field lighting when it is necessary and also switch it off immediately after training, do not shower longer than strictly necessary …”
That was scary, but three months later it’s even worse. Another message to members: “ENERGY COSTS GO HOLE IN THE BUDGET!!!!!” The deficit has risen to forty thousand euros. “If the policy remains unchanged, this means that we have to increase the contribution by 100 percent in order to arrive at a balanced budget,” René van de Ven wrote to its members.
Acute financial problems
As with RKSV Princess Irene, it is happening all over the country. At the bar, in the boardrooms, along the field and next to the track, board members and volunteers look at each other. How on earth are we going to pay the energy bill? For many households, energy prices have doubled or even tripled in the past year – partly due to the shutdown of gas supplies by Russia following the war with Ukraine. According to the Central Planning Bureau, 1.2 million households are at risk of experiencing acute financial problems – the cabinet hopes to help them in the short term. Sports clubs often have a high energy consumption, for example due to light poles along fields and halls, heating bathing water, keeping the ice rink cool.
In February, sports umbrella organization NOC-NSF received the first signals from associations that got into trouble after they had to conclude a new energy contract, a spokesperson said. NOC-NSF then decided to open a hotline. “The first fifty reports we received from clubs showed that they had to pay on average 100 percent more after concluding a new energy contract,” says the spokesperson.
Measures were inevitable. From hockey club Cranendonck (contribution up) to football associations in Westerwolde (heater lower, field lighting off more often) and Scherpenzeel, who placed an announcement on the website about the training evenings: “As of September 12, 2022, showering will no longer be possible.”
They are absolutely no exception. Research by the Mulier Institute – which continuously monitors associations – already showed in April that one in ten sports associations that pay the energy bill themselves (sometimes the municipality pays and the association rents accommodation) will increase the contribution this year. Half of the associations think that an increase in the contribution will be necessary next year.
“One association has a long-term and low energy contract, the other has just received a heavily increased contract,” says researcher Janine van Kalmthout. “But in general the concerns are great. First the associations had to deal with corona, as a result of which many clubs lost members and therefore lost their contribution. Now there is significant inflation and the increased gas and energy prices are added to this. The question is which clubs can still absorb that.”
ASV De Dijk, a football club in Amsterdam with about a thousand members, had to renew its energy contract at the beginning of this year. Chairman Julius Egan expected a significant increase in costs, but was still shocked. “We have pre-sorted in our budget for a doubling of energy costs. It looks like it’s going to triple. From twenty thousand to sixty thousand. Then we have a gap of twenty thousand euros. That’s a lot of money for a club like ours,” says Egan.
The board actually saw only one solution: increasing the contribution by 10 percent, which comes down to an extra twenty to thirty euros per member. Acceptable for most members, but not for everyone. Egan: “We are in Amsterdam-Noord, a neighborhood where not everyone has the same wealth.” The clubhouse of the football club was built fifty years ago. ASV De Dijk would like to build a new building, but that has not yet been achieved. “We have not invested in sustainable interventions. That means that such an increase in energy bills will hit you extra hard,” says Egan.
No more swimming lessons
“It grinds, it squeaks and it creaks, but associations can absorb it a bit by increasing the contribution or prices for drinks,” says André de Jeu, chairman of the Association for Sport and Municipalities, an organization that helps governments develop of sports policy. “But the biggest problem is the swimming pools and ice rinks. They consume so much energy – they don’t last.”
The acuteness of the problems for the swimming pools and ice rinks is apparent from an emergency call that the concerned sports associations and employers’ associations issued at the beginning of this month. According to them, the “extreme increase in energy prices” threatens the closure of six to eight of the 22 artificial ice rinks in the country “this year”. Also, they calculate, about 200 of the 637 public swimming pools will have to close.
“Very simple: if children no longer learn to swim because the swimming pool is closed, then we have a very big problem,” says De Jeu. His organization is negotiating with the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport to find a solution. The cabinet was previously called upon to help sports clubs through an adopted motion. According to De Jeu, one hundred million euros is needed to keep all swimming pools and ice rinks open.
At RKSV Irene, a members meeting is planned for 6 October. “It will be exciting,” says chairman René van de Ven. “Ultimately, the members will have to decide how we are going to close the budget gap, because this way the very existence is at risk.”
There will be a contribution increase anyway, says Van de Ven, but other interventions are also being discussed: stripping the youth academy, making it more sustainable – although there is no money for that at the moment. And then Van de Ven waits “with fear and trembling” for the energy prices of next January 1, when the current energy contract expires. Van de Ven: “If the price increase continues and the government does nothing, it will be very difficult for us. Then I’m afraid that members will stop and no longer exercise at all. That seems to me the exact opposite of what the country needs.”
With the collaboration of Danielle Pinedo
More sports: profile Marianne Vos, Weekend 28-29
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of September 17, 2022