The infrastructure, the entire sports system in Germany, can no longer meet the demand for exercise. In metropolitan areas, clubs are becoming desperate – and children are being left out. Where is the promise of politics and organized sport of participation for everyone?
Basketball is growing rapidly in Germany. First World Cup gold in 2023, then European Championship success in 2025 – there is great enthusiasm for German NBA stars like Dennis Schröder, Moritz and Franz Wagner. “The kids see the Wagner brothers – and want to play like them,” says Damian Mieczkowsky: “And the clubs are being overrun.” Mieczkowsky coaches the U10 and U12 of MTV Cologne, together with Timo Buder, who adds: “It’s not easy and it’s very frustrating for us to have to disappoint children again and again.”
Buder also trains his two sons, born in 2016 and 2017 – which is how the teacher got into volunteer work. His boys’ school friends would always ask for a trial training session. He usually has to refuse. “The training would no longer work with even more children in our small hall.” The selection is already difficult because in this age group there is only four against four games – but the entire training squad includes 25 children. “And they are all hungry for the competition.”
“There is an admission ban in this group!”
The MTV Cologne 1850 is the largest popular sports club in the city, with over 6,000 members. A look at the basketball department only shows a small part of the overall problem. If you click through the club’s diverse sports program, you will always see the message in red letters: fully booked! “There is an admission freeze in this group. Trial training is not possible and there is no waiting list.” Even if it sounds absurd, the message is intended above all to deter people. The trainers protect – from overly desperate parents who want to register their children. The office will then do the rest over the phone.
How many rejections need to be made? Probably hundreds a month. Managing director Holger Dahlke has long since lost track of things: “In short: strong demand constantly meets limited supply.” Timo Buder still reports that interested parents still get through to him directly. But even then he has to disappoint. Because his team has existed for more than four years. Since then, hardly any child has stopped – and made a place available. The kids have been district champions several times, which brings them together. New ones can hardly be integrated.
Waiting up to two years for a place for children’s gymnastics
Joanne Bittermann knows that the problem begins with the little ones. Among other things, she directs children’s gymnastics at MTV. Classic introduction to sport for the little ones. Climbing, jumping, games and fun. If a new course is advertised, it is fully booked within minutes. If you arrive too late to get a spot, you will at least end up on a waiting list. Because: “If a child is absent five times without excuse, I have to exclude them”says Bittermann, “So that another child gets a chance. Otherwise that would be unfair.”
Bittermann also leads beginner swimming courses – with a similar picture. Although non-members have to pay almost 200 euros and members 120 euros, they are literally overwhelmed with registrations. There is also a lack of offers in the city, but above all of available swimming pools. This puts the city in line with the national trend: Since the turn of the millennium, hundreds of swimming pools nationwide have been permanently closed – and half of the existing facilities are now in need of renovation. MTV managing director Dahlke says: “We are reaching our limits in all areas.”
Above all, there is a lack of sports facilities and times of use. Dahlke cites the broken infrastructure from the 1970s, windows and heating no longer work; It often takes months for spare parts for sports equipment to arrive. “It’s a real satire of how a lot of things are being ruined in the sports sector.”he says. In addition to the 15 dilapidated halls, another four halls are currently closed to ball and running sports, according to the Cologne city administration. And yet: the people of Cologne also want to do sport. Many parents drive their kids across town to get a spot in a sports club. But of course there are also those who give up and don’t wait for a free place.
Bad Framework conditions scare away the few trainers
It looks like Cologne in many large cities and metropolitan areas. The problem is complex. The all-day school also reduces the hall times for many clubs. And in many places there is a lack of trainers in a country where sports operations largely rest on the shoulders of volunteers. Studies show that their involvement in sport is declining.
The need for austerity has left a wide swath of destruction in sport. From school sports that are constantly canceled, to popular sports and competitive sports. The sports clubs, which are considered to have an integrative power and are seen as pillars of social life, could hardly cope with their tasks, especially in metropolitan areas, says Professor Ansgar Thiel, sports scientist at the German Sports University in Cologne. “Organized sport wants to enable low-threshold participation for children, integration, inclusion, regardless of the parents’ income”he says: “Keeping this promise is becoming increasingly difficult.”
More and more children in a small urban space, but at the same time the infrastructure is not growing with it. Bureaucratic hurdles are often too high to allow municipal areas such as parks to be used for club sports. Instead, expensive private sports providers are springing up in many places, in popular sports such as basketball, football and martial arts. There, the better-off children train at private sports schools for high course fees, often well into three figures per month. But the same applies here: limited supply.
The quiet hope of Olympia
The MTV has also taken part in the Allianz Kölner Sport through the Rheinstars, with whom they form a syndicate in the basketball performance area. Several clubs and the city sports association appealed to politicians in January: “This is how the sports city becomes a sports desert!” Massive cuts in the budget, with talk of around 20 million euros in the sports sector (clubhouses, sports facilities, artificial turf pitches), have alarmed the clubs. In a city where many footballers are still kicking ashes and sports facilities are rotting.
That actually doesn’t fit with the Rhine-Ruhr region’s planned Olympic bid with the “Leading City“Cologne, says Dahlke. Nevertheless, he is betting that Cologne RheinRuhr will be accepted as a German Olympic candidate because that will make some things better. The city will then be forced to invest in sports facilities – and that could also benefit popular sports, his club. “This is at least a faint hope that federal funds will also flow for the Olympics – because the municipality is overwhelmed.”
In keeping with Germany’s bid for the Olympics, the Conference of Sports Ministers announced a “national action plan” in March to get children moving. At least 60 minutes of exercise a day, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Because currently only one in four adolescents in this country moves that much. “The generation of five to fifteen year olds today is said to be the most active we have ever had”says Hamburg’s Interior and Sports Senator Andy Grote: “Many of them should be on the podium in 2040 when we have the Olympics in Germany.” Generation Gold? More like: generation waiting list.
Record membership numbers and dying clubs
When asked, there are no reliable figures on how many people are currently unable to join a sports club, says Björn Jensen from the German Olympic Sports Confederation. But the problem is “structural and comprehensive” and “Evidence from practice suggests that the problem is most pronounced in large cities and metropolitan areas in particular.”. Because the sports facilities here are often particularly dilapidated, the space is scarce and the trainers are particularly rare.
And that with a new record level of membership in the DOSB of 29.3 million, which doesn’t fit in with another phenomenon: the death of clubs. More than one in six sports clubs (17.5 percent) see their existence threatened – this is one of the central findings of the ninth sports development report for Germany. Since 2011, the number of clubs has fallen by over 6,000 to currently just under 86,000. These are clubs “most important source”to get children moving. “If children don’t get a place in a club or in courses such as swimming, this significantly increases existing movement deficits”According to Jensen, the personal and social development of children also suffers.
Our sources:
- Interviews with Damian Mieczkowsky, Timo Buder, Holger Dahlke, Joanne Bittermann (all MTV Cologne), Professor Ansgar Thiel (Sport University Cologne), Björn Jensen (DOSB)
- Conference of Sports Ministers: Initiation of a National Action Plan to Promote Children and Youth Sports, resolution of March 19, 2026
- DOSB: Sports development report
Broadcast: “Sport inside – your deep dive into sport”, WDR 5, April 14, 2026, 4:30 a.m
