Renovation of municipal sports facilities: Criticism of bureaucracy and transparency

As of: October 31, 2025 1:58 p.m

The new federal funding program for sports facilities continues to cause dissatisfaction. It’s about bureaucracy, justice – and transparency.

How can the federal and state governments efficiently help municipalities with the herculean task of renovating the many dilapidated gymnasiums, sports facilities and swimming pools? Professor Lutz Thieme, sports scientist at Koblenz University, is addressing this question. The title of the research project: “The optimal design of funding programs for sports infrastructure”.

The study was commissioned by the Federal Institute for Sports Sciences. On the occasion of the major announcement by the Federal Government “Sports Billion” the university published an interim report in mid-May.

criticism of Selection process

Five months later, the “Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Construction” (BMWSB) presented its new program “Renovation of municipal sports facilities” – and also received criticism from project manager Thieme. “The program largely does not address the central points of criticism that were dictated to us by the municipalities and states in a qualitative analysis in the bloc.”

The criticism referred to the previous program called “Renovation of municipal facilities in the areas of sport, youth and culture” (SJK). According to Thieme, a big wish for improvement was that the selection should be more understandable. “The previous procedure was often described to us as an arbitrary selection. Terms like ‘Black box‘ or ‘bazaar’. But there are no changes in the new program.”

A small group of householders decides

In contrast to most other urban development funding programs, the budget committee should continue to make the selection for sports facilities. In the case of the SJK program, a few householders from the coalition parties did this on the basis of a preliminary assessment on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Construction. The committee itself then only received a list of the selected projects to approve.

What the preliminary assessments looked like remained unclear. The Federal Ministry of Construction did not release the lists even when asked by the sports show. It is therefore impossible to assess to what extent the responsible householders oriented the selection towards the technical criteria. In view of the hundreds of applications, they had enough options to choose from; the need is enormous nationwide.

Householder constituencies lavishly considered

The distribution of project commitments between 2015 and 2024 appears all the more questionable. According to Sportschau research, the rural constituencies of long-time coalition householders received an above-average amount of funding.

The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) criticizes the selection “without any recognizable sporting criteria” successes. “There is a risk that funding decisions will be made based on political considerations or geographical distribution, rather than based on the actual needs of the population,” writes the association in response to a sports show request.

Householders do not comment

The Ministry of Construction referred inquiries to the Budget Committee. The Sportschau wrote to the coalition parties’ budget policy spokesmen: How do you want to ensure transparency? And why does the budget committee continue to make decisions?

But Thorsten Rudolph (SPD) did not find time to answer by the editorial deadline and Christian Haase (CDU) referred to an FAQ from the ministry, which, however, does not reveal any details about the selection process in the committee.

This means it remains unclear what the chief householders have to say on the subject of bureaucracy. Both coalition parties had announced the new funding program as a “model project for reducing bureaucracy”, in which the federal government would allocate the money to the municipalities as a lump sum. That would have corresponded to the wishes of the municipal umbrella associations.

Criticism also came from the German Association of Cities and Municipalities

But from the perspective of the Association of Cities and Municipalities, not much is left of the announcements. “Instead, it is essentially a continuation of the SJK program. The process with an upstream expression of interest procedure will again tie up a lot of time and resources at the municipal level,” said Alderman Marc Elxnat.

The Federal Ministry of Construction refers to individual simplifications in the awarding process, for example in energy standards or in the statements of the states. “A blanket allocation of funds is not possible. This would require further legal changes,” writes the ministry.

DOSB: “Many municipalities remain excluded”

However, in its announcement in September, the CDU announced that it would change the federal budget regulations in order to be able to allocate the money as a lump sum. The DOSB is not convinced that there are only changes in the details. “The promised streamlining of the procedures is only insufficiently effective due to the ongoing bureaucratic hurdles. Many municipalities and sports facility projects remain excluded,” writes the umbrella organization.

Poorer municipalities in particular did not even take part in the SJK program because they were afraid of the costs and effort. This led to strange results, such as the fact that the wealthy Hamburg, which is well connected in the Federal Budget Committee, had 21 projects funded, while comparable large cities such as Cologne, Frankfurt and Stuttgart did not receive any funding.

The Bundestag is providing 333 million euros as part of the new funding program; municipalities can express interest until January 15, 2026. Whether the communities whose sports facilities need the help most will actually benefit in the end appears questionable again.