Institute of Sports Science

ARD Forum Sport

3rd ARD Forum Sport – Financing High Performance Sport

12.10.2015 – Last Wednesday various experts discussed the future of financing High Performance Sport in Germany during the 3rd “ARD Forum Sport” in Hamburg. The event was organized by the ARD’s (German public broadcaster) Sport Coordination in cooperation with members from the Department Sport Economics, Sport Management & Media Research (University of Tübingen) and students from the Bachelor program Sports Journalism.

After welcome speeches by the Director of the German Broadcaster NDR, Lutz Marmor, and ARD Sports Coordinator Axel Balkausky, TV moderator Gerhard Delling started the discussions with Alfons Hörmann (President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation) and other distinguished experts from various fields such as politics, media, sports and science. Once the candidature of the German city Hamburg for the 2024 Olympic Games was presented, Christoph Holstein (Council of State of the Authority for Interior and Sport of Hamburg) and Dr. Nikolas Hill (CEO of the Hamburg Olympic Bidding Committee) informed the audience about infrastructure arrangements, the concept of sustainability and the benefits of hosting the Olympic Games in Hamburg.

Gerhard Böhm (Head of the Department of Sport for the Federal Ministry of the Interior, centre) and Dirk Schimmelpfennig (Head of High Performance Sport in the German Olympic Confederation, right) are explaining the planned reform for high performance sport in Germany.
Presenting Hamburg’s candidature for the Olympic Games: Christoph Holstein (Council of State of the Authority for Interior and Sport of Hamburg, centre) and Dr. Nikolas Hill (CEO of the Hamburg Olympic Bidding Committee, right).
Audience at the 3rd ARD Forum Sport in Hamburg.
Closing discussion: Julius Brink, Markus Weise, Alfons Hörmann, Gerhard Böhm and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Maennig (f.l.t.r.)

Afterwards Julius Brink (Olympic Champion in beach volleyball 2012) and Evi Simeoni (Sports Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) were debating on the status quo of financing High Performance Sport in Germany. “The role of sports in the German society has to be redefined”, claimed Julius Brink and provided an overview of the uncertainties German athletes are confronted with due to the lack of long-term planning in financing High Performance Sport. Simeoni mentioned, however, that putting pressure on athletes to win medals might increase the risk of Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) abuse. Moreover, allocating funds to just few sports would leave other disciplines without means as recently experienced by the German Curling Association (when funds from the state were cut off temporarily by the end of 2014). “We felt alone”, explained Andreas Kapp (former European Champion) and Thomas Lips (Head Coach, Curling) pointed out the consequences for the association and the efforts that were made to obtain funds in the future.

Also other sports are excluded from financial support as shown by Laura Grasemann, moguls slope skier and participant in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games. Currently she and her team mates in this discipline are self-financing their head coach and all training, as well as competition costs. Wolfgang Maier (Sporting Director of the German Skiing Association) justified their decision to not financially support this sport by pointing towards the dilemma the German Skiing Association is in, because of the inclusion of new disciplines to the Olympic programme. The Association is not capable of financing all its disciplines. On the other hand Maier is well aware that “if there is no funding there will be no sustainability nor any discipline related youth development”.

The second part of the event focused on the future of financing High Performance Sport in Germany. At the beginning, Alfons Hörmann explained the goals of the German Olympic Sports Confederation and the Federal Ministry of the Interior in reforming the financing programme. Hörmann claimed that “medals are an important aspect of evaluating what German sports has to accomplish. However, the British and Dutch approach to only concentrate on few disciplines is not the right way for Germany”. One goal of the ongoing restructuring process should be to create “comprehensible structures with exact definitions of tasks and responsibilities”. Therefore the Confederation would need to gain more influence, guidance and control about how the funds are allocated and used. This is in line with the position of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

An insider view on the new concept of financing High Performance Sports in Germany was provided by Dirk Schimmelpfennig (Head of High Performance Sport in the German Olympic Confederation) and Gerhard Böhm (Head of the Department of Sport for the Federal Ministry of the Interior). In the future, athletes, who are capable of becoming world class athletes and their coaches should stand in the focus of funding initiatives. Plans are made to change the perspective from financing the basis and projects to financing individual athletes in their confederations. This approach is entirely supported by Economist and former Olympic Champion in rowing, Wolfgang Maennig. Furthermore, he proposed giving vouchers to athletes to finance coaches, training and competition costs.

Next to Maennig, Brink, Hörmann and Böhm, Markus Weise (successful hockey-head-coach) took part in the lively and controversy closing discussion focusing on issues such as the situation of coaches in High Performance Sport, the dual career of athletes, or the relevance and societal role of PE-classes, as well as that of sport as a whole. Despite having various ideas and approaches, Markus Weise pointed out problems in “getting things done”.

(Verena Burk, Rike Held and Kevin Walter)

The report on the 2nd ARD Forum Sport can be read here.