Frankfurt / Main (dpa) – Clammy cash registers, endangered livelihoods and no social gathering: The large and dangerous features of the coronavirus crisis are also making themselves felt massively in popular German sports.
But the presidents of the state sports associations are also concerned about long-term volunteering and the future of the club, as a survey by the German Press Agency showed.
Hesse’s LSB President Rolf Müller described: “If the sports program is to be suspended for much of this year, some members will surely consider leaving at the end of the year – simply because they also have less in their pockets. It is important to prevent this in any case. » Because of the pandemic, all mass sports are currently suspended. Especially for the amateurs in contact sports such as soccer, basketball or handball, a timely return to normal could be difficult – and could take a long time.
The lack of social contacts and the lack of movement in society are among the serious short-term consequences; in the long term, structures in the numerous sports clubs could also be put to the test. The State Sports Association Hamburg said: “The uncertainty is a big challenge, because nobody can really reliably answer when club sport will be possible again in its usual form. The longer the condition persists, the more difficult it becomes. »
Not all sports clubs are affected equally. Associations that are largely financed through their membership fees have fewer difficulties in the short term. In equestrian sport, for example, the financial problems are already making themselves felt most clearly.
Andreas Vroom as President of the State Sports Association Bremen said: «Various riding clubs are currently missing, for example, € 12,000 each. They needed the money to feed the animals. The alternative would be battles. The situation is particularly dramatic. »
There are no reliable nationwide financial figures for two reasons: on the one hand, the end of the crisis is far from foreseeable, and on the other, each state sports association calculates differently. Some with professional clubs, some without. Hessen is already assuming “a high double-digit million amount”, in Berlin the previous feedback from clubs alone has resulted in a total of six million euros.
Jochen Borchert from LSB Rhineland-Palatinate said: “Sport is an economic and, with a lot of volunteer work, a social pillar of a social system that is practiced at the grassroots level.” He stands “like no other area of life for social coexistence, for cohesion”. From North Rhine-Westphalia it was said that there was a hopes that sport would relax in the near future, because “the trainers and trainers of our clubs in particular are real guarantees that the rules stipulated by politics will be observed”. The clubs still want to have enough of these volunteers in the future.
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