sports policy
Athletes’ club demands debate about money and values
The Athleten Deutschland association calls for a debate on the meaning and purpose of top-class sport. photo
© Angelika Warmuth/dpa
The association Athleten Deutschland calls for a fundamental debate about the meaning and purpose of top-class sport. They want to move away from the pure focus on wins and medals.
More money, more medals: This calculation has not worked out in German top-class sport for a long time. The acceptance of the millions in funding for competitive sport is dwindling, and dissatisfaction in politics, associations and the public is increasing.
“There is frustration in the system that depresses everyone. And the pressure that we shoulder in the end increases. We want that to change,” says an analysis presented by athletes in Germany.
Goals of elite sport
The association calls for a fundamental debate about the social goals of top-class sport. The question of the meaning and purpose of funding apart from the medal haul has been “the elephant in the room” for decades, the athletes’ representatives stated. “Measuring the value of top sporting achievements, as is currently the case only by winning a medal, does not go far enough,” criticized Karla Borger, President of Athletes Germany.
Rather, it should be examined to what extent the positive effects of top-class sport on society could be taken into account in the promotion. “Our demand is not a rejection of the commitment to top sporting performance. Rather, it is an announcement to strengthen top-class sport in the future,” she emphasized.
More pressure, fewer medals
In recent years, federal sports funding has come under increasing pressure to justify itself. Despite an immense increase in federal funds, Germany’s sporting success and medal haul in world sport has declined. The competitive sports reform introduced in 2016 has not been able to change this so far. At the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo there were fewer medals than ever since reunification, and at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing the balance was characterized by stagnation.
Most recently, the track and field athletes experienced a two-medal fiasco at the World Championships in Eugene. Top sprinter Gina Lückenkemper then rejected the criticism and said that German athletes “have to work their asses off to be able to compete against these full professionals”. For Olympic champion Ulrike Nasse-Meyfarth, this is “populist nonsense,” as she told the “Tagesspiegel”.
The 66-year-old does not see the support as too low. “I don’t know what else is supposed to prevent an athlete from completing two training sessions a day and maybe one more physiotherapy session, just like a so-called ‘full professional’,” she said.
This discussion about money and medals is repeated every few years, said Maximilian Klein, co-author of the athlete analysis. However, juxtaposing the use of funds and the yield from international competitions cannot satisfactorily resolve this discussion in this simplified form.
In Germany, funding was geared towards international potential for success and not towards increasing the common good. “Both goals can be mutually dependent and contribute to each other, but they do not automatically go hand in hand,” explained Klein.
strengthen the common good
Johannes Herber, Managing Director of Athletes Germany, agreed that new criteria, which, in addition to sporting success, would also include social benefits, would make funding more holistic. “Because other nations also invest massively in top-class sport, some athletes dope or are drilled without regard to losses, it is difficult to keep up in some disciplines,” he explained. Therefore, individual increases in performance and potential for the common good must be given greater consideration.
Therefore, Athleten Deutschland proposes a new social agreement on the goals of state-sponsored top-class sport. “At the end of this process, there could be a new social contract – even a sports promotion law – for top-class sport,” it said.
“The timing is good because the federal government has committed itself to structural reform in the coalition agreement and wants to present a future plan for sports funding by the end of the year,” said Klein. The willingness to change can also be seen in the German Olympic Sports Confederation and in the top associations. “It is in the associations’ own interest to have this discussion,” said Klein.