Looking for a medal: President and Board of Directors of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) at the welcome ceremony for the German Olympic delegation (Frankfurt am Main, August 9, 2021)
The next General Assembly of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) will prematurely end the era of President Alfons Hörmann on December 4th in Weimar and elect a successor. Will the state sports associations (LSB) send their own candidate into the race, as more than a dozen Olympic associations intend to do with Thomas Weikert?
It is not yet clear. Last weekend, the conference of the state sports federations dealt intensively with content and structures that are important to us for the future work of the DOSB. The fixation on a single person who can solve all the problems of the DOSB in the blink of an eye is a mistake anyway. We need a strong team and a complete reorganization at the top of the DOSB.
What is the top priority for your state sports association in the direction of December 4th?
More than ever, we need a strong DOSB as the voice of sport and coordinator at the federal level. His political work in Berlin needs more resources and has to go beyond the sports department. Because club sport is always a part of education, health and social policy. We need an aggressive response from club sports to the legal entitlement to school full-time in 2026, otherwise we will lose access to children and young people. We need to have the courage to tackle the stalled reform of competitive sport. B. by outsourcing large parts of the system to a competitive sports company. We should quickly clarify whether the DOSB intends to apply again for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the foreseeable future. And we have to make it clear what contribution organized sport can make to climate protection.
According to your LSB President, the changes should also include moving sport to the Federal Chancellery and no longer to the Ministry of the Interior. What are the advantages?
With a state minister for sport in the Chancellery, sport would have an independent position in the federal government that is appropriate to its importance for our society. The DFB recently made this clear. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the establishment of a state secretary for sport in the state chancellery has led to excellent results for sport and has further improved the cooperation between the government and us.
However, the federal government is only responsible for top-class sport, the states are responsible for “small sport” …
Nevertheless, that would have a signaling effect. It could help break some knots that might be B. emerged in the competitive sports reform. And by the way: In the federal states it is not about the supposedly »little sport«. More than 90 percent of the social added value of sport comes from the club base. Without the work there, there would be no top-class sport that the federal government could promote.
How did you perceive the DOSB’s »corona management«? The umbrella organization was not even invited by the Bundestag’s health committee to two hearings about amendments to the Infection Protection Act.
Yes that is unfortunately so. That is exactly what needs to be changed, sport needs to have a stronger voice in Berlin.
What do you think of only electing one new DOSB president and initially only for one year?
As far as I know, all six presidium members to be elected by the general assembly will be newly elected. The statutes owe this to only be possible for one year at first.
You have taken the lead on the important topic of sexual violence and initiated a national study that will be available in early 2022. Why did the impetus come from NRW?
We have been involved in the prevention of sexual violence for more than two decades. It is the most important asset of club sport that children and young people are in safe hands there and that they contribute to positive personal development in their lives. We must therefore decisively counter the risk posed by sexual violence in sport. This also includes getting a reliable picture of how severely sport is affected and understanding even better how it comes about. This is what the study serves, in which, by the way, a large majority of the state sports federations take part.
Why does the study ignore the aspect of psychological violence that former protégés of gymnastics trainer Gabriele Frehse accused of? The head of the study, Bettina Rolufs, said that the athletes had not been asked whether and how often they were yelled at, verbally abused or otherwise treated in an unacceptable manner.
This can only be a misunderstanding. The study “Safe in Sport” sponsored by us deals with various forms of violence, psychological violence is explicitly included. The study asks club members about their experiences with psychological, physical and sexualised violence in children and youth sports. It is also asked about forms of verbal violence, e.g. B. whether the respondents were insulted, verbally threatened or humiliated. Thanks to the study, we get a comprehensive picture of various experiences of violence in children and youth sports.
