Numerous sports clubs in popular sports and in the top leagues outside of football are in financial need during the Corona crisis. The federal states have opened rescue packages and are providing emergency aid. Is that enough? According to DOSB clubs, handball and basketball are close to the abyss.
Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - Many clubs of the German Olympic Sports Confederation are in need in the coronavirus crisis. "It's clear that sport needs money at all points," DOSB President Alfons Hörmann told the German Press Agency.
Emergency programs have long been implemented in all federal states. At the end of March, the DOSB also launched a support fund and provided one million euros from its German Sports Foundation. "These are the immediate measures. This is about liquidity aid," said Hörmann. The first payments were decided on Wednesday. "But that still has nothing to do with how it looks in the medium and long term."
So far, the financial imbalance of the clubs and associations of the DOSB has been difficult to estimate and it is difficult to estimate what would be needed in the long term for stabilization or even rescue. That is why the DOSB commissioned a study from the auditing company Deloitte. "We have received 50 feedback from the association. That is about half and should already give a good and representative picture," Hörmann reported on Wednesday in the meeting of the sports committee in the Bundestag.
The results of the study will be evaluated in the next two weeks. "At the end of May we should have a good and plausible overview," said the DOSB boss. He does not expect the bottom line to result in a sum for the need for money in need. "This cannot be because everything that we are discussing has to be viewed in scenarios," said Hörmann.
When are competitions again, when will events be possible again? "Therefore, it can only be a first approximation or a rough overview. Anything else would be unrealistic," he emphasized.
An overview of the DOSB with the funding opportunities for sport shows that the 16 federal states provide at least more than 171 million euros for relief measures and special programs. Five countries were listed for which no specific amounts were given.
The president of the German Handball Federation, Andreas Michelmann, considers financial aid from the federal and state governments to be urgently needed. Clubs where the budgets were "sewn on edge" would be very difficult, said the spokesman for the team sports in Germany, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". "We are expecting political help there, because these are not self-made problems, they are related to government measures in connection with the Corona crisis," said Michelmann.
"The fact that there are problems with the clubs is completely undisputed," said the sports committee chairwoman Dagmar Freitag (SPD). "I have always said that we need reliable information and we need to know the extent to which the rescue packages of the countries are effective." If it then became clear that there were significant problems, "we have to see whether we can readjust within the framework of the existing program".
The financial consequences are very different for the clubs. "It makes a difference whether a club is simply volunteer or whether it is dedicated to rehabilitation sports or educational offers," said Hörmann. "It looks particularly dark when it comes to rehab. These clubs are badly affected."
The situation is precarious even in the top leagues outside of football. "There is the situation that the country is under. In basketball and handball, the clubs are not all too far from the abyss at the top," said Hörmann. "It won't be long before we will have the first bankruptcy cases. It will come as safely as amen in the church if it continues like this."
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