A few weeks ago, some representatives in organized sports must have felt like a marathon runner who had somehow completed 42 of the 42.195 kilometers – and then a fiber tear pulled him to the ground a few meters before the finish.
The marathon was the route that the planned sports funding law had covered up to that point: representatives from sports and politics had worked for two years to provide top athletes in Germany with better conditions in the future in order to counteract downward trends in the medal count. They had argued hard, pulled themselves together; On November 6th, the cabinet approved the draft law. But hours later, the traffic light government collapsed. If a sports funding law still had to be passed, then it would probably be in the next legislative period at the earliest, they believed in political Berlin, among athletes’ representatives and at the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).
Now there’s music again. The first discussion of the draft law is scheduled for the agenda of the 204th session of the Bundestag next Friday. If everything goes smoothly, the law could still drag itself across the finish line at the beginning of next year.
The CDU/CSU sees “serious weaknesses” in the draft law
The draft was submitted by the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens factions; it is a kind of parliamentary offer from the Bundestag. These drafts are not first presented to the Federal Council, but go directly to the committees after the first plenary debate, before the second and third debates and then the final vote in the Bundestag. Such events are very unusual, but since the traffic light broke, the usual has finally come to an end. Now factions are trying to quickly save what can be saved.
It is still uncertain whether the Sports Promotion Act will actually make it to the finish line, alongside drafts for tax relief for employees or child benefit. The fact that the parliamentary groups are also trying sport is also due to the fact that the draft law passed through various hands over around two years and it is “only about nuances in the direction”, at least that is how Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser recently saw it. The big hurdle now is to scrape together a majority in parliament – and this shows that nuances are a thing.
Stephan Mayer, sports policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, said in response to SZ’s request that the draft would be “dealt with in detail”. This draft – the one that the cabinet approved at the beginning of November – has “serious weaknesses”. Mayer mentions “the increase in trainer remuneration, the inclusion of the needs of sports support groups and team sports as well as the question of real independence of the top sports agency”. This planned agency, which is supposed to control funding in the future, will also bring with it “more bureaucracy”: “The draft law therefore needs a fundamental revision.” Another hurdle: Mayers Parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz recently emphasized that the Union would not agree to any legislative proposals that had an impact on the budgetsince neither a supplementary budget has been decided for 2024 nor a budget for 2025.
Athletes in Germany are also cautious
It is undisputed that the draft also caused grumbling in organized sports until the end. Maximilian Klein, deputy managing director of the athletes’ representation Athletes Germany, is also now cautious when asked. He considers the new initiative to be legitimate and important: a passed funding law forms the basis for almost all further reform projects; The planned reform of top German sport goes much further. However, Klein essentially sticks with the criticism that athletes recently made to Germany: that the bill in its current version wastes a lot of potential. This ranges from the supervisory bodies of the top sports agency, in which there is currently no guarantee of a place for Klein’s independent athlete representation, to the legal right to social security such as maternity protection and retirement provision, which squad athletes should be entitled to in the future at the request of the athlete representation. Such a requirement is missing in the current draft.
Changes to the proposed procedure are still possible, says Klein. Will this be possible in the necessary depth and to the required extent under time pressure? Questionable. If the law actually comes soon, Klein hopes that the parliamentary groups will present a step-by-step plan for all projects that are no longer accepted, which will take these wishes into account in the future.
Sounds like a pretty long final stretch for the sports funding law.
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