Have a good laugh: Olympic mascots Milo (r.) and Tina (l.)
Sounds like a lot: the German Sport Aid Foundation is now paying out 30,000 euros for Olympic gold instead of 20,000 euros, and 20,000 euros for Olympic silver instead of 15,000 euros. Olympians in the black, red and gold jerseys who are fighting for precious metal at the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo from February 6th to 22nd should provide additional motivation for these prospects. In addition, thanks to a change in the law, these payments will be tax-free for the first time from 2026. Anyone who thinks that the medal bonuses will be increased thanks to a well-filled sports aid fund is seriously mistaken. A look at the small print is enough to give you an indication: there is only more money for gold and silver because in return the previously usual Olympic bonuses for places four to eight are no longer available.
A classic case of redistribution that should surprise no one. The fact is that the foundation, founded in 1967 as an aid, support and partner address for the squad athletes of Olympic and now also Paralympic sports, has been suffering for years. This is due to the private sector’s lack of and persistently stagnating willingness to provide athletes with adequate support. Although around three dozen well-known companies are currently supporting an Olympic bid from Berlin, Hamburg, Munich or the Rhine-Ruhr region, the company bosses mostly ignore our Olympians of today, tomorrow and the day after with a lot of disinterest. Without around 300 curators, who together traditionally raise more than two million euros from their own pockets each year, the situation for Sporthilfe would be even more disastrous.
It got so bad that in 2018 the foundation had to abandon the creed it had maintained for five decades that the budget – with the exception of grants from special stamps and lottery funds from the Glücksspirale – should be financed exclusively from private sources. But even the “Fall of Man” did not have the desired effect. 1,500 euros a month for the athletes supported in the “top team” and 1,000 euros for everyone in the “potential team” – these sums remain a pious wish despite generous state subsidies. There is a lack of generous help from companies and private individuals.
In the past eight years, the federal government has provided the Sporthilfe Foundation with well over 55 million euros. For 2025 alone, 8.5 million euros bubbled up from the state source for “direct athlete support” or for the “dual career” funding area. The foundation is now even happy to receive support from the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), with 1.75 million euros in 2025. In its last officially announced annual report from 2023, it is referred to having directly financially supported athletes with a total of 20.7 million euros. This sum included 9.4 million euros “from public funds in accordance with the specifications of the Federal Office of Administration”. A subtle indication that the high state funding from Sporthilfe is now expected and priced in as a matter of course, and that without this inflow from taxpayers, the complex support system for the approximately 4,000 athletes, from young talent to the very big ones, would probably not be able to be maintained. Under these circumstances, a more financially attractive framework with higher monthly support is out of the question – unless, for example, the “Economic Alliance for the Olympics” discovers this foundation as its natural partner. It would be a blessing for more than 4,000 actors. A total of 549 athletes currently belong to the first funding category (including 176 from winter sports) and the second category includes 1,243 athletes (including 114 from winter sports). The largest group is the “Talent Team” with 2,235 young talents, 465 of them from winter sports. In summary, this means that 755 players from the “ice and snow” sector and 3,272 from summer sports and ball sports are currently being supported.
Because the economy is holding back, the Sporthilfe headquarters would like to move further away from the long-eroded principle of supporting athletes exclusively with private money and turn the previous principle completely on its head. At least that is the approach that Karsten Petry, Sporthilfe’s board member for marketing, sales and events, eloquently formulated. “In order to sustainably strengthen German top-class sport, there needs to be much closer coordination between sport, business and society – and above all the targeted expansion of private funding as a supplement to state support.” Accordingly, in the near future, the millions from the federal government will no longer just be able to permanently improve the finances of Sporthilfe, which currently has around 50 employees, and help consolidate its budget. More than that. In the future, public money will even guarantee the lion’s share of the sports aid budget.
Anyone who calculates according to this principle has not only completely said goodbye to the original idea of the foundation. Anyone who prefers sports aid in which private money is only intended to spice up, round off and supplement the state subsidies is shaking up the livelihood of this deserving institution. The German Sport Aid Foundation, increasingly dependent on and supplied with more and more tax money, is in this way undermining its character and its raison d’être as a self-sufficient funding institution. With such a changed profile, the foundation is well on the way to coming under the umbrella of the future national top sports agency as a “specialist department for athlete support”. The new allocation could also put an end to an astonishing disproportion between effort and benefit. In 2022, Sporthilfe said it spent 6.3 million euros on acquisitions, campaigns, events and collaborations, as well as a further 2.8 million euros on its own staff and business operations at the headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. More than nine million euros were invested, which was offset by 20.2 million euros in cash in direct financial support for athletes. Efficiency is spelled differently.
