Guillermo Herrera had to finish the period of the Ministry of Sport, a new portfolio that was released in the administration of President Iván Duque, which ends on August 7.
Herrera was appointed in July 2021 to replace Ernesto Lucena, who came as director of the former Coldeportes and was appointed as the first Minister of Sports in Colombia, in 2019.
The key moments of Herrera’s management
For you, what were the key points of the Ministry’s management?
Gender equity, which is like my workhorse. I realized that this is a macho sector. We leave the minimum guarantee to promote and consolidate the role of women in sport. That became decree 941.
What is guaranteed with it?
The Ministry is obliged to evaluate each year what percentage will be defined for the female investment sport. The decree says that the minimum percentage may not be less than 30 percent of the resources assigned by the Ministry to the respective federation.
What happened to the allegations of sexual harassment?
More than 54 cases have been registered to date. There is a care protocol. This allows a woman or a man to report anonymously to activate these social psychological and legal and legal support mechanisms for complaints. Work was done with UN Women on the definition of gender equity policy guidelines.
Advances in the promotion of female talent
What projects are left?
The specials to promote women’s sports. We have soccer, volleyball, basketball, handball and the Tierras de Atletas women’s cycling team.
A clear example…
They plan to strengthen the men’s volleyball team after eight years, the women are in a better position. They go to Croatia, to the Challenger Cup. Today they are at the top of the rankings, that is what the decree is for, an obligation to support them.
How is the theme of Team Colombia?
There was no strategy and there are a large number of actors who make decisions. If it’s just one delegation going to an event, why do so many people go? That is why we created a single conventional and Paralympic Colombian National Team.
What is the program?
The Colombia team is made up of 62 athletes and para-athletes who were chosen on the basis that they can win medals at the Paris Olympics. All are among the best eight places in the ranking and they are guaranteed their preparation.
How much is the support?
The Ministry of Sports has allocated 17,000 million pesos in support for this year to the conventional and Paralympic, but it is the Ministry that is going to be aware that they do not lack anything with the end of the performance in Paris. We remove intermediaries.
“The ‘Podium’ is the sports reserve. There are 200 athletes here, and for the rest of the year it will cost us 1,500 million pesos. The idea is that these athletes are chosen for the projection they have.”
Is there a sports reserve?
There is decree 1052. The idea is to organize the strategy for the training, selection, projection and creation of the sports reserve and high performance. You have to attract talents and train them. Today we have 3,040 athletes who cost us 11,300 million pesos. Then come the PAD, a selection process. There are about 1,000 athletes in the identified strategic disciplines and there are 8,000 million pesos for them.
Are there other programs?
The ‘Podium’ is the sports reserve. There are 200 athletes here, and for the rest of the year it will cost us 1,500 million pesos. The idea is that these athletes are chosen for the projection they have. When an athlete reaches more or less 16 years of age, he must decide if he continues in the sport. That is why the program was born, which gives them between one and 2.5 monthly legal minimum wages so that they can dedicate themselves to sports.
What about the glories of sport?
This decree regulates the issue. We have 64 athletes who earn four monthly legal minimum wages, it is a kind of life pension.
What is the challenge of the next government?
Keep budgets. If that does not happen, it is evident that the needle is lowered. This did not exist in the Ministry and remains as an organized policy.
What about sports schools?
It is a third legacy. It is a sports program in which there are 33,000 children identified for support and an investment of 33,000 million pesos. The figures show that in Colombia, according to Dane, only 10 percent of children in the country from 6 to 12 years old practice a sport when they leave school.
How does it work?
We have 33,000 children in more or less 526 municipalities in the country, 610 schools, with a criterion that these schools focus on strengthening equity programs in municipalities in the peace process. We cover 80 percent of those municipalities.
What goals do they have?
The objectives are that children have better sports, psychomotor and social development. Then gender equity is promoted and sports initiation processes are encouraged. This has been strengthened with various ambassadors such as Nairo Quintana, who has 19 schools in Boyacá; Falcao, 26 schools in Catatumbo. Luis Díaz’s foundation has 16 schools, about 800 children. Juan Guillermo Cuadrado is in Urabá and in Quibdó. There are schools for indigenous and disabled children.
What is pending?
The Sports Satellite Account Design (CSD) and associated statistics. We realized that there are 38 economic activities that have to do with sport and there are four exclusive to sport, they alone move, on average, 3.8 billion pesos a year. Calculate what the sector can be. Experts tell us that sport can make as great a contribution to the economy as tourism in Colombia. That has to be strengthened.
So why can’t you have an annual Women’s Soccer League?
I asked Dimayor to have more competition time. Was planning missing? I think so, but I understand that there are interests that move within that may be blocking the issue. The clubs decide.
And there are leagues like baseball, or futsal and men’s basketball, with the same problems as the women’s soccer league…
Some leaders say that it is not a business or that the economy is not enough for that. They may be right, but that is where public policies come in with more weight. Decree 1052 forces us to look at those processes where the associated sport needs more support in order to promote them. Last year, we gave the Baseball League 1,600 million pesos in support that it did not receive before, and with only four teams, that allowed the level to rise.
And we still have no anti-doping lab…
The World Anti-Doping Agency needs to prove two things to certify it. One, scientific, administrative and technical independence, there can be no interference from the National Government. Two, staff training. We recently signed an agreement with the National University for the independence of the laboratory. We are in the creation of the account to be able to transfer the 7,000 million pesos that it requires for the administration.
What happened to the investigations for the resale of tickets from the Football Federation?
It is more a matter of the Superintendency of Industry and the Prosecutor’s Office. If it becomes criminal, the Ministry intervenes, we are waiting for that. We investigated 11 clubs with the powers we have and Santa Fe, Pasto and others were fined. We found 254 administrative situations that had to be corrected. That shows that there are many management problems, because many of the clubs are run like a shop.
What is your opinion of the Llaneros scandal in the Primera B final?
It is the subject that has offended me the most. The Prosecutor’s Office said that there was no merit to investigate illicit purposes, but affirm that the sanction was not the most appropriate, it was very weak.
What is the calculation of medals at the Paris Olympics?
I don’t want to get ahead of myself. The 62 athletes with the best expectations have been identified, they must be prepared, they are guaranteed that. We can’t let that go down.
What happened to the investigations into the Ibagué National Games and the Neiva stadium?
As for Ibagué, the Comptroller pointed out the imputation of charges. That continues its course and that is the responsibility of the Comptroller and Prosecutor’s Office. Neiva seems sad to me. This is a process that should be speeded up more by the authorities.
What was your headache?
What cost me the most work was the organization of the Bolivarian Games in Valledupar. They were announced in 2019. There were agreements signed since 2020 for their financing, and I arrived in August: they had not started. We laid the first stone of the coliseum and of the swimming pools in September of last year, very late, very high. The Ministry does not execute the works, the territorial entities do. Infrastructure planning processes must be improved. We put conditions on the municipalities for economic transfers. First, there is no agreement until it is reviewed that the projects comply technically, legally and financially. I found projects with unformulated agreements, and one of those was in Valledupar.
How did you take the issue that Anthony Zambrano will not go to the Bolivarians?
I talked to him, and he said he regretted what he said. Lack of support? The Ministry gave him more than 500 million pesos in this semester. He thought it was the neighborhood Games. They checked him out and it seems that he did have an injury, but the athletes must take responsibility for his actions, as I told him; it may be the smallest competition, but you have to start the cycle.
Was not holding the men’s Copa América the worst thing that happened to this Ministry?
I prefer not to comment. It didn’t touch me.
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