So there they are: a phone number and an email address. Sometimes it just seems simple what can lead to a better future, and there is also a lot of work behind it: For many months, the Athletes Germany Association has been working towards creating an independent contact point in German sport for all those who are in experienced violence in their clubs.
A study at the end of 2016 already showed how acute the need for action is: Of the 1,800 senior athletes surveyed, a third had already experienced sexualized violence, 86 percent psychological, 30 percent physical. More than five years have passed since then, and people kept speaking up, confirming one thing above all: sport alone cannot fight the problem, the closeness and dependencies between athletes and their coaches and supervisors are too great.
That’s why there is now the number of athletes in Germany, they didn’t want to wait any longer for the state to set up a “Center for Safe Sport” and felt that they had to act now. Because athletes contacted them too, several times a month, again and again – and in mass sports too, court cases, especially about sexualized violence in sport, repeatedly made their way into the public eye.
“We have decided for ourselves, this is something we want to tackle immediately,” said former water polo player Tobias Preuss at the presentation of “Start Against Violence” on Monday, he is Vice President of Athletes Germany. Active and former squad athletes can contact us anonymously at 0800/9090444 (Mondays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursdays 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.) or by email at [email protected].
A “Center for Safe Sport” is still urgently needed – but the planned financing raises questions
Of course, numbers and e-mail addresses already existed beforehand, but many of those affected did not always feel they were in good hands. Either the positions within sport were anchored in associations or state sports federations and were therefore part of the same system, or so far outside of sport that specific knowledge of the structures in club life was lacking.
“The boundaries to what you experience as an assault in everyday life are often a bit blurred in sport,” said fencer and athletes’ spokeswoman Léa Krüger on Monday, “that’s why there are sometimes assaults, violence and abuse, which you sometimes do as an athlete only realized when you think about it. The state contact points cannot provide or understand that at the moment.” The position that has now been created is seen as a supplement to other offers, “you now have the choice”.
The focus is on initial psychological or legal advice, and the associations in which the incidents occurred are only confronted with the allegations at the request of those affected. And one thing is also clear: a “Center for Safe Sport”, which takes on the intervention, prevention and processing of violence in sport – especially in popular sport – is still urgently needed, a commitment to this is in the coalition agreement.
A feasibility study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior also confirmed the need at the beginning of the year. Since then, talks have been going on about further implementation, and a first point of contact is also planned here. The fact that initially only 300,000 euros are earmarked for this annually is met with incomprehension by the athletes in Germany.
The association itself finances its contact point through two foundations, with an amount also in the low six-figure range. “We believe that if you want to cover popular sport now, you will need higher funds to cover the extensive tasks,” says Maximilian Klein, who has been campaigning for a “Center for Safe Sport” for a long time. “We see abroad that there is a need for investments in the millions.” In Germany we are still at the very beginning.