Swiss sports funding – expensive and inefficient compared to international standards?

On the edge of the village of Sarnen, Canton Obwalden, there is a concrete building from the 1980s, 500 meters from the lake. The National Performance Center for Swiss Rowers is located in this building. The operators write on the website that it is in a “scenic” and “quiet” location. Roman Röösli and Andrin Gulich, among others, trained there – they won bronze together at the Olympic Games in Paris last summer.

Performance centers like the one in rowing are spread across Switzerland. The cyclists and mountain bikers have a base in Grenchen, tennis players train in Biel, shooters in Magglingen and the surrounding area, the triathletes in Sursee, track and field athletes in small training groups throughout the country.

The Swiss Ski ski association maintains three centers in Brig, Davos and Engelberg for Alpine, Nordic, freestyle and snowboarders. There are also the national sports centers in Magglingen and Tenero. There is also the privately financed OYM in Cham. There is little cross-sport coordination; for example, each center has its own athletic trainers and physiotherapists. Is the Swiss sports system an inefficient and expensive patchwork quilt, as might be typical of a federalist country?

A Dutch Olympic medal costs a tenth

The Swiss delegation won eight medals at the Olympic Games in Paris, five fewer than in Tokyo in 2021. After Paris, scientists examined the medal balances of 17 countries – and came to the conclusion: Switzerland won fewer medals than expected; Broken down to the expenditure on sports promotion, the podium places were also expensive compared to other countries.

A large part of the investments in Swiss sport come from lottery money and the state. The study used these resources as the basis for the evaluations. Sponsorship money was not taken into account. Measured against the money that flowed into sport from the lottery and the state during the last Olympic cycle since 2021, a Swiss medal in Paris cost an average of 74 million francs. In the Netherlands there were 7.4 million, a tenth of that.

This is also a numbers game; Wage levels and cost of living were not taken into account. In addition, the investments in the study refer to summer and winter sports. Switzerland won 15 medals at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing – all through the Swiss Ski Association, which has a generous budget thanks to the marketing of the World Cup races in Switzerland and lucrative sponsorship contracts.

Despite the lack of clarity in the study, it’s worth taking a look at the Netherlands, where winning an Olympic medal seems so much cheaper. The country has a population twice as large as Switzerland, but won three times as many medals in Paris as Swiss Olympic; At the Winter Games in Beijing the difference was smaller, with the Netherlands achieving at least 17 podium places. With a completely different sports system than exists in Switzerland.

It’s worth taking a look at Papendal

The Dutch have had a huge sports center in Papendal for more than fifty years. 350 athletes from various disciplines train there, study or go to school. There is an athletics stadium, equestrian facilities, sports halls and even a BMX track. Everyone benefits from the best sports doctors, physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists and athletic trainers in the country. The center is financed by the state, the national Olympic committee as well as by the hotel operations and events offered in Papendal.

The Norwegians, who run the Olympiatoppen, a national top sports center in Oslo, are taking a similar approach. There are cross-sport training courses as well as close exchanges in injury prevention and sports medicine. Norway won more medals in both Beijing and Paris than Switzerland – despite having only 5.5 million inhabitants, similar wage levels and comparable costs of living. Would more centralism make Switzerland more successful?

Andreas Weber is a sports economist and heads the “Sports Systems” specialist group at the Swiss Federal University of Sport in Magglingen. Weber worked on the international evaluation of the Paris Games. He says that the success of a sports system at the Olympic Games depends primarily on the gross domestic product per capita and the size of the population – and comes to the conclusion: “If you add up the medal haul in summer and winter, Switzerland is doing very well.”

Weber is employed by the Federal Office of Sport (Baspo) and attaches great importance to speaking from a scientific and not a political perspective. In 2019, he and other researchers examined the local sports system and summarized it in the study “Competitive Sports Switzerland 2019”. Among other things, this comes to the conclusion that there is potential for improvement in “cross-sport structural support”. The authors write: “Cooperation in performance centers, competitions and research and development creates a competitive advantage.”

Federal structures make centralization in elite sport impossible

More centralism cannot simply be achieved in Switzerland; there are high hurdles. Andreas Weber says: “The state supports the promotion of sport on a subsidiary basis, leaving a lot of space to private initiative, as in other areas of society. The Baspo does not claim leadership in the development of sports.”

This is due to Switzerland’s federal structure, which is transferred to the financing of the sports system. Sport funding in Switzerland is based primarily on private law initiatives; In contrast to Germany, the Netherlands, Italy or France as well as the majority of Scandinavian countries, where the state takes on a large part of this task.

The Swiss state supports sport with youth and sport funds or through top-level sports funding from the army. However, it gives the associations freedom to shape the use of resources and strategic development. Unlike in Great Britain or the Netherlands, there is a lack of strategic, public targets from the top. Weber says: “The Dutch have clearly communicated that they want to be among the top ten nations at the summer and winter games. Switzerland lacks a vision for international success as a sporting nation.”

Switzerland promotes sport through the associations. These are divided into five categories every four years depending on their medal potential and social relevance. The amount of funding from the state and the lottery fund is based on this classification. This means that national performance centers are financed and operated by associations. Everyone looks for themselves; there is no higher-level institution that could take the lead.

Andreas Weber says: “Maximizing medal winnings is not the priority in Switzerland. That’s why sport is widely supported and its social relevance is taken into account.” This is also reflected in the greater emphasis on healthy, ethical sport that Baspo has initiated with Swiss Olympic.

Things are different in the Netherlands, which supports sport on a project basis. With this in mind, Weber speaks of “business cases”. The associations submit a dossier to the Dutch Olympic Committee, which is examined by a panel of experts. If the project is deemed worthy of funding, money will flow. This happened in handball, for example. Just a decade ago, the Netherlands played a minor role in this sport. They have now qualified for several European Championships and World Cups and have made it into the top ranks of the world.

The example of flag football

In Switzerland, the distribution of funds is more complicated. Unlike in Norway or the Netherlands, the tax base is primarily available at cantons and municipalities and not at the federal level. In the Dutch and Norwegian performance centers, the athletes complete training and education under one roof, which would also be difficult to implement in Switzerland, because education in this country is the responsibility of the cantons. Weber says: “Switzerland’s federal structures exclude the centralization of top-level sports funding.”

However, Weber also sees advantages in these structures for promoting sport. He says: “In the long term, this system is more robust because it can react more flexibly to changes.” The associations adapt more quickly to the changing Olympic program. An example of this can be found in flag football: The discipline will be in the Olympic program for the first time in Los Angeles in 2028; Switzerland has recognized a trend here and recently won bronze in the World Cup in this division.

“It’s not about more concrete, it’s about more networking”

Weber says centralization is not the panacea in a sports system. “The Norwegians are partially transferring the funding from Olympiatoppen back to the regions. We see similar tendencies in France,” he says. This is because otherwise know-how would be lost in the rest of the country and the system would be weakened.

Weber nevertheless advocates more cooperation and refers to the “Olympic Park Switzerland” project, which does not provide for the creation of new infrastructure. “It’s not about more concrete, it’s about more networking.” Olympic Park is intended to promote (digital) exchange between sport, research and business in order to sustainably strengthen sport and society. Weber says: “Switzerland has once again become the innovation world champion, but sport still benefits too little from cutting-edge research.”

The sports economist sees federalism in Swiss sport as an “exciting path”. He says: “Because the structures are so diverse and there is no centralized support, we can make a greenfield plan for the future.” In addition to the Olympic Park project, this plan also includes the possible holding of the Winter Olympics in 2038. By then, Swiss sport may even have agreed on a vision.