Tabovede children in wheelchairs and on foot. Sports celebrities from former soccer pro Philipp Lahm to petite gymnasts and powerful discus throwers. Federal and state ministers, state secretaries, members of parliament, sports officials. The movement summit of the Federal Minister of the Interior on Tuesday in Berlin was a great boost. A colorful balloon, shiny and eye-catching – and full of hot air.
Above all, he made recordings for photo and television cameras possible. But it was also an inventory of deficits. The sport lacked recognition and appreciation, complained European gymnastics champion Elisabeth Seitz and suggested beacons and heroes as a solution. Do major events and sporting successes improve the image of sport in politics and society?
For a long time, the umbrella organization of German sport concentrated on just that: on top-class Olympic sport and its financing. At the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), the feeling may prevail, as the long-standing chairwoman of the sports committee of the German Bundestag, Dagmar Freitag, described the association’s understanding of politics in the era of Alfons Hörmann, everything is going well as long as you don’t get rebuffed by the interior minister. Millions in taxes for gold medals, that was the equation from which Interior Minister de Maizière deduced that the German Olympic team should win a third more medals.
It won’t be about content until next year
The limitations of this attitude became apparent when the pandemic swept across the country. Children and young people were no longer allowed to do sports together. Hörmann expressed the misery by converting the club’s loss of members into billions in losses.
The state’s Corona aid for professional clubs, a good 200 million euros, organized the team sports lobby at the same time, not the DOSB. In November 2020, the Health Committee expressly did not invite sport to its hearing on the Civil Protection Act, as if it needed a symbol of the lack of networking and recognition.
So now, three weeks after she wore the “One Love” armband, which was banned for German national team players, when she attended the World Cup, Nancy Faeser was once again making symbolic politics. A teeming summit at which German sport was able to get to know the representatives of eight federal ministries alone. They all want to take care of content in the new year.
