Ministry of Sport: budget cuts, new gold for uselessness (Meluk tells, opinion)

Those who are readers of this column will confirm, based on the newspaper’s archive, that Since 2018, when there was talk of creating the Ministry of Sport, I have maintained that it is an unnecessary portfolio. To be clear: he has not done anything different for the sector than the old Coldeportes did.

And so that we can continue to be on first-name terms, The Ministry of Sports has been very useless during the government of President Gustavo Petro, but it had already shown itself to be unnecessary during the administration of Iván Duque, his predecessor. It is just a political and bureaucratic bargaining chip.

In these two years completed this Wednesday by the Petro government, the Ministry of Sport has failed with total success. The arrival of Maria Isabel Urrutia, A legendary athlete, the country’s first Olympic gold medal, was a great sign. But she came up with nothing, because she did nothing. She stopped all the preparation and investment processes because she did not want to give state money to a private intermediary: the Olympic Committee, which charges a percentage for managing it among the federations. It is clear that whoever puts up the money has the power.

I said something wrong, sorry. I said that Urrutia had done nothing, when he did everything in a major scandal by breaking the national record for ‘signing athon’ of contracts against the clock, knowing that he would be leaving his post.

It was so outrageous that the President dismissed her, and the Attorney General’s Office brought charges against her for allegedly signing 95 contracts in an irregular manner.

From mess to mess: the loss of the Pan American Games

She was replaced by a complete unknown in the political world and in the National Sports System: Astrid Rodríguez, an academic from the Pedagogical University, a student of an old teacher of President Petro.

And Minister Rodríguez lost, in an incredible way, due to clumsiness and incompetence – according to the official version, unless she had run an errand…? – the venue for the 2027 Pan American Games in Barranquilla, in the greatest absurdity of national sport after renouncing the 1986 World Cup. The Minister of Sport against sport. It was a complete ridiculous explanation from a Minister of State, as if it were a credit card in the neighborhood store, of why she did not pay the rights to Panam Sports. It was always said in all the scenarios that the Pan American Games were not to the liking of the Government because they were in Barranquilla, an opposition political enclave. The Executive had already proposed “opening them to other cities in the Caribbean.” When they lost them, the President spoke of holding intercollegiate games. Nonsense!

And another mess, in the form of budget cuts

And now, like the stale strawberry on the spoiled cake, the third Minister of Sports in two years, Luz Cristina López, who came to the Government as an apparent conservative quota with Paralympic knowledge, has not done anything either and that is why she did not execute the budget, did not invest (she has barely 10 percent and we are already in August!), and justified, in a scolding tone, the cut of almost 70 percent (of almost 900 billion pesos) for the 2025 budget. Once again, a Minister of Sports against sports.

I spoke to a source from the National Planning Department who, in addition to mentioning the general tax cuts already announced, told me clearly and in no uncertain terms: “These cuts are also being made because there is a lack of implementation.” That’s it!

The truth is that the Ministry of Sport was useless even before Petro. And the President knows it. He said it to his minister López’s face at his very inauguration. “I don’t see the point in creating this ministry, it seems like a waste of time.” He is right about that. And perhaps that is why his three ministers in these two years have won gold medals for uselessness: Urrutia wasted his time; Rodríguez, the Pan-American Games, and López, the silver. Nice podium!

Meluk tells him…

Gabriel Meluk

Sports Editor

@MelukLeCuenta

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