“Even if it’s terrible that we need you, we need you urgently.” Nancy Faeser made the ambivalent impression at the opening of the Safe Sport contact point clear on Tuesday in Berlin: I’m happy that politicians are using this help line and the financing of has made three positions possible and has thus reached a milestone on the way to becoming a center for safe sport.
At the same time, horror at the cases of violence and abuse in sport that are repeatedly reported. According to the Federal Minister of the Interior, one actually goes to sport in order to have a safe environment and to get positive messages into life, not the negative sides.
Berlin Senator Iris Spranger, Chairwoman of the Conference of Interior Ministers, called the facility a sign of the defensiveness of those who support sport. Like the federal government, the federal states bear half of the funding of the contact point of 300,000 euros.
Mental, physical and sexualised violence
The sociologist and sports sociologist Ilse Hartmann-Tews from the German Sport University in Cologne recalled that 70 percent of those questioned reported having experienced violence in sport. It is about psychological, physical and sexualized violence, often in combination. In their experience, if those affected reported it, they fell on deaf ears and experienced that their cases were negated and swept under the rug: “Obviously social structures in sport prevent the abuse of power in sport from being appropriately perceived, and from being evaluated appropriately and to act as an organization on abuse and to support the disclosure of cases.”
Politician and representative of those affected, Angela Marquardt, recalled the hearing of the Federal Government’s independent commission on the investigation of child sexual abuse in October 2020, at which three of the 115 victims known at the time from sport made their cases public. In doing so, they would have broken through the system of consciously looking the other way and remaining silent, and by becoming involved in the sponsoring association of the contact point, they would have taken on responsibility.
Discussion is now possible away from the scene of the crime. Independence from the structures of sport is absolutely necessary for this space “that conveys something like trust”. At the same time, sport has a duty to draw attention to this independent institution. “It’s good for those affected to have a safe place where the structures from sport don’t exist,” commented Faeser.
“useful addition”
Associations and clubs see themselves in the paradoxical situation of turning against violence with programs, facilities and staff on the one hand, and on the other hand for reasons of independence from membership in the Safe Sport e. V. to be excluded. Federal, state, athletes Germany, Angela Marquardt and Ilse Hartmann-Tews are founding members.
The German Olympic Sports Confederation and the German Sports Youth are not part of it and do not support the association financially. The contact point is “a useful addition to the existing decentralized contact points in organized sport and the specialist advice centers in the local communities and thus makes a significant contribution to strengthening those affected,” says a statement from the associations.
Michael Reinsch, Berlin Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 17 Julia Basic Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 12 Michael Reinsch Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 2
It will be difficult to coordinate with the sports organizations and their more than 90,000 clubs prevention, intervention and reappraisal, as the Center for Safe Sport will soon be doing: handling the cases, dealing with them legally, intervening in clubs and associations, for example in the case of misconduct by coaches.
As early as May last year, Athletes Germany set up a contact point for those affected by violence and abuse in top-class sport; within the first year, 150 victims reported. The initiative for the Center for Safe Sport goes back to the request made by Maximilian Klein, Director of Sports Policy at Athletes Germany, and Managing Director Johannes Herber in February 2021. First, the grand coalition of the Merkel government took up the issue, then the traffic light coalition of Chancellor Scholz.