The Corona crisis is having a massive impact on popular sport: Financially, many clubs are not looking good.
They are now hoping for an aid package.
District - "Winter is coming" - this sentence not only worries in the series "Game of Thrones", but also in Bavarian amateur sport.
Due to the Corona crisis and its effects on popular sport, things are not looking particularly good financially for many clubs.
The Bavarian State Sports Association (BLSV) had already predicted in May that losses of around 200 million euros were to be expected via a digital reporting platform.
At that time, a quarter of the 12,000 clubs had made their contribution to establishing a reliable database.
Doubled association fee
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder and the Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for sport, had already reacted: In April, the so-called club flat rate was quickly doubled - from 20 to 40 million euros.
Although: The full-bodied announced “comprehensive help where it is needed” was not.
One of the reasons for this is that most clubs are not dealing with large amounts that are being doubled.
On the other hand, many clubs do not even benefit from the club flat rate: This is paid out in compliance with the sports funding guidelines of the Free State of Bavaria.
For this purpose, an application must be submitted to the responsible district office by the beginning of March of each year.
As this is a deadline, a subsequent application is not possible.
In the case of the Freising district, this means that more than a quarter of the clubs will not receive a club flat rate this year.
This means that they have no chance of participating in the increase.
Sources of income collapse
It hit and hits all clubs that a large number of their sources of income have collapsed since March.
Particular mention should be made of admission and sponsorship fees, stadium newspapers, donations, additional courses for members or interested parties, as well as income from events, hospitality and campaigns.
That will not change much in the next few months - even if competitions in front of fans have been allowed again since September 19.
In view of the limited number of viewers and the additional effort required to implement various hygiene and behavioral rules, profitability is questionable.
In addition, depending on the season, training is now largely indoor.
Due to the prescribed maximum occupancy of rooms, regular ventilation breaks and distance rules, the clubs have enough to do to maintain regular operations.
The additional income, for example from club parties or Christmas tree auctions, has already ceased or cannot take place due to Corona.
The costs remain
The problem: The costs for the ongoing operation and maintenance of the sports facilities, the rent of the club houses, as well as for trainers, supervisors and trainers are still incurred.
This leads to deep worry lines for many treasurers.
Financial support would of course be desirable here.
Funding through the Ministry of Economic Affairs
At the request of the Freisinger Tagblatt, the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior for Sport and Integration announced that economically active clubs had received state funds from the “Corona Emergency Aid” funding program (until May 31) and the “Corona bridging aid” program developed at the federal level.
According to the BLSV, this funding measure by the Ministry of Economics and the doubled association allowance compensated for numerous failures.
The BLSV does not have any specific figures on this.
Anyone who takes a closer look at the pages of the Corona bridging aid will quickly realize that it is actually aimed at companies.
A non-bureaucratic help tailored to amateur clubs looks different.
Without a tax advisor, lawyer or auditor, the application can hardly be dealt with.
And as a result, it is very questionable whether the help for a non-profit association, which can only roughly estimate the loss of sales for 2020, will also be granted.
Professional sport has its own corona package
Interestingly, the budget committee of the Bundestag decided at the beginning of July to provide extra corona aid in the amount of 200 million euros for professional sport.
However, only professional and semi-professional sports clubs or companies in the 1st and 2nd leagues in Olympic and Paralympic individual and team sports for women and men (excluding the 1st and 2nd men's soccer league) and the 3rd soccer league of the Men.
In contrast, an extra Corona aid package, which will only be made available to clubs without professional infrastructure, is not in sight.
Observe and reevaluate
But the BLSV with its member associations and the Bavarian state government are closely monitoring developments in amateur sports and, according to their own statements, are in regular contact to decide on necessary measures.
In an information letter to its sports clubs on September 4th, the BLSV became clearer: “Since it is foreseeable that the financial situation will not relax in the next few weeks and months, we are also trying to get another aid package for organized sport in Bavaria together with the state government. "
Hopefully such a package will come before the first departments and associations declare financial bankruptcy.
We'll have to wait and see whether that's enough to keep the clubs alive, because the damage caused by the corona pandemic to amateur sport and the attributes intended for it, such as character building, maintaining health and sociability, is not yet at all to be foreseen.
Josef Fuchs
