In the past few weeks, the top of the German Olympic Sports Association (DOSB) has formulated a clear expectation to the new Chancellor Friedrich Merz. German sport likes to consider itself the most important social movement in the whole country, and is currently intoxicating not least in the idea of a new Olympic application, which can supposedly be so important for all of Germany. He would like the new Chancellor to refer to the topic in his first government declaration, said Volker Bouffier, Merz ‘long-time CDU party friend and since January at the DOSB as a “board member for special tasks”.
Now the first government declaration is over – and in sports you have to recognize again that you are not as important as you would like to be. Because that went differently than desired.
Friedrich Merz spoke about an hour on Wednesday and touched countless topics-one sentence for the Olympic application was not among them. The delegated Merz to the new “Minister of State for Sports and Volunteering”, which came to the microphone in the pronunciation of the government declaration a few hours after him. The Olympic application is a “big goal” and “a real future task, not just for sport,” said Christiane Schenderlein (CDU). “But it is a social mandate and at the same time it supports the modernization of our country.”
The new Minister of State for Sports and Volunteering looks like a Minister of State for Volunteering and Sport
They would have liked to hear such sentences from the Chancellor himself in sports. Now, given the critical situation in the country and in the world, it cannot really be surprised that it has other topics in view. But if he had definitely wanted, there would have been passages into which Merz could have integrated an Olympic reference. It was quite remarkable that he ignored a wish that was so explicitly presented by the DOSB. And on top of that, even in Schenderleins there were around five -minute speech a few messages that could not like the sport.
The Minister of State for Sports and Volunteering first looked like a Minister of State for Volunteering and Sport because she initially spoke longer about the volunteer fire brigade and volunteering in general before switching to sports. She said nothing about tricky questions such as the financial support of an Olympic application. And at the same time she integrated the sentence: “If we think of the 2040 Olympics, then our athletes are in the daycare and primary school today.”
This formally referred to the conversion of athlete promotion, but it was striking that it called the year 2040 in context with Olympic Games. Because the top of German sport has been spreading the thesis for some time that a surcharge for the summer games 2036 is still possible – which is roughly as likely as a soon -to -be change from Friedrich Merz to the Left Party. Because after seven failed attempts, German sport has been in a new attempt for years, but (at the earliest) I have a concept next year. And because other countries have long since pushed themselves into the role of favorites. Then there is a sentence like the indication that the government also considers the 2036 talk.
The first interim balance sheet is not in the sense of sport
Such a short speech for the introduction is of course not a final and detailed positioning, which only follows later; He is already sending a few signals. A few weeks ago, the DOSB leadership was still really euphoric how great it would be with the new government. And that this has supposedly admitted all three core demands of sport in the coalition agreement: namely the first name of a sports minister, the promise for the modernization of the dilapidated sports infrastructure and support of the Olympic application.
The first interim balance is: The thematic side entranter Schenderlein, previously more in cultural policy at home and not so intertwined with the established sports club, was certainly not the desired personnel. The hoped -for sports billion for the modernization of the sports facilities is not available every year, but only for the whole legislative period. And if you take the course of the government declaration as a yardstick, the sport also has to do a lot until it gets the right support for its Olympic plans.