Her case was the impetus: trainer Gabriele Frehse
After some of her gymnasts publicly made accusations of harassment against coach Gabriele Frehse at the end of 2020, the situation also became “relatively dramatic” for the Olympic Training Center (OSP) Saxony, recalls its boss Christian Pöhler. From then on, the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB), as the association responsible for the subject matter and subject matter, no longer allowed its trainer in the gym in Chemnitz – the OSP, as the person responsible under labor law, had to stand by and only received the DTB’s investigation report on the events in a blacked-out manner. “That can’t be. We need full knowledge. I don’t know of any area outside of sport where something like this exists,” Pöhler’s predecessor, Thomas Weise, railed at the time jW. It is “absurd” that the gymnastics association knows more about the situation before the start of a trial before the Chemnitz labor court than the employer, who bears the economic risk of the proceedings and at the same time the labor law risk of termination, which was carried out by the OSP under pressure from the association was pronounced in spring 2021 – and the lawsuit against it before the labor court went bankrupt a few months later.
A further legal defeat in the appeal process before the State Labor Court would have been even more expensive and perhaps vital for the Saxon OSP. But this negotiation became unnecessary two years ago because the Austrian association hired Gabriele Frehse as national coach for its women’s team. The Chemnitz knot was surprisingly dissolved. This history is essential in order to understand the practically unbearable conditions surrounding the 148 OSP trainers at the 16 Olympic bases in Germany.
Practical problems
As “hermaphrodite beings,” they are employed by the OSPs, but in their day-to-day work they are only subject to their respective professional associations in terms of their subject matter and expertise. There are also “mixed conditions” when it comes to financing, which is shared between the federal government or the central association as well as the respective federal state and the relevant state sports association. This, and above all the separation between the “employer” and the service and specialist supervision, shaped a situation with which quite a few people at the OSPs were unhappy for years because it caused a number of practical problems. For example, when business trips on weekends on behalf of the associations lead to “working time accounts” being overdrawn. The turbulence in the “Causa Frehse” has led the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), which is responsible for competitive sports, and the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) to realize that this construct has more disadvantages than advantages. Now it should come to an end.
A process
»In the future, employment and financing will be combined at the sports associations. “It is a gradual process that basically affects the filling of positions,” said the BMI jW-Inquiry with. It is not known how many of the 148 contracts have already been changed. According to Christian Pöhler, half of the 22 mixed-financed OSP trainers in Saxony are now employed according to the new requirements. They didn’t wait until new hires were due or until fixed-term contracts expired, but instead worked with change or transition options. »It is of course much more difficult to intervene in existing contracts. That’s a bottleneck, but it can still be successful,” reports Pöhler and refers to two OSP employees responsible for the German Ski Association (DSV) who were the first to end their “hermaphrodite existence”.
»These guidelines have been gradually being put into practice for almost two years. Whether, when and how this happens individually at the Olympic bases is ultimately decided by the individual specialist associations in the various sports. In exceptional cases, some people find it a little more difficult, others like the DSV generally find it easier,” explains Christian Pöhler. “It’s just a process.” It is impossible to date exactly when it was shot down and when the last “old contract” became a thing of the past. For Stefan Sadlau, Pöhler’s deputy as head of the OSP in Saxony, this process “could be over quicker than expected and progress relatively quickly.” Because many of the trainers in question are already in the mid-fifties age group and will retire within a manageable period of time. Incidentally, the vacant position of gymnastics coach Gabriele Frehse has not yet been filled. This should reportedly happen by the summer, at the latest by the start of the Summer Olympics in Paris at the end of July – and then of course in accordance with the new guidelines from the BMI and DOSB.
