The World Cup in football, which is played in the overly rich Qatar, can be used as an example of where Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are currently in terms of sports.
Croatia made it to the quarterfinals, Serbia, despite the incredible "hype", finished the competition with only one point, Bosnia and Herzegovina finished the qualification just ahead of Kazakhstan, and Montenegro ahead of Latvia and Gibraltar. When sports budgets are compared, one can partly see the cause of those results.
Montenegro: When the reconstruction of the grandstand is the biggest investment
In a country that probably has the worst football infrastructure in Europe and where politicians often like to point out that athletes are its best ambassadors, the reconstruction of the western stand of the Sutjeska Football Club stadium in Nikšić represents the only multi-million dollar capital investment in sports that will be paid for from the budget of Montenegro for the next year.
According to the budget proposal for 2023, total allocations for sports through current budget spending and capital investments are estimated at around 13 million euros, which is 21 euros per inhabitant.
Of that money, 6,87 million will be given to the Ministry of Sports, which is half a million more than this year. Within the same position, 5,82 million will be diverted for the development of sports, and the largest part of that money, 80 percent or 4,35 million, consists of transfers to institutions, i.e. the Montenegrin Olympic and Paralympic Committee (COK and POK), federations, clubs, organizations, according to the published competition.
The rest of the 1,45 million is intended as compensation for individuals who have the status of top athletes.
At the position of the ministry, 370 thousand euros will be set aside for the construction, reconstruction, adaptation and equipping of sports facilities, and 300 thousand euros of that money represent expenses for construction facilities.
The budget of the Ministry of Sports for next year is only 0,27 percent of the total current state spending.
In addition to this money, 4,53 million euros will be allocated through capital investments for the construction and reconstruction of sports facilities. This represents 2,2 percent of the capital budget worth 202 million euros for the next year.
The largest capital investment of two million is the aforementioned reconstruction of the stadium tribune in Nikšić, which began at the beginning of 2020. Although the end of the works was announced for the same year, the information in the budget for this project now says that the implementation period is until 2024, so the projections are that through the capital budget in 2024 and 2025, the state will allocate an additional two or three million euros for this purpose.
In addition to that project, 700 euros are planned for the reconstruction of the outdoor swimming pool near the Old Town in Budva, and 600 euros will be allocated for the same purposes for the indoor swimming pool in Igalo.
Among the more significant projects, the construction of the sports hall in Plužine, worth half a million, as well as the construction of the balloon hall in Andrijevica, for which 400 thousand euros will be spent, stand out.
Projections of the capital budget for 2024 predict half a million more investments in sports facilities than in the case of the next one, while the plan is to allocate over six million for the same purposes in 2025.
Investments in sports facilities next year are planned as part of development projects in the Capital of Cetinje. Funds of 1,4 million have been earmarked for the construction of the hall in that city, as well as 140 for the construction of changing rooms and the adaptation of the auxiliary football field in Cetinje.
Line Minister Vasilije Lalošević and COK President Dušan Simonović have repeatedly emphasized that the state's financial aid to Montenegrin sports must be significantly greater, and that it is necessary to amend the Law on Sports in order for this to happen, and this would be preceded by the drafting of the National Strategy.
One of their proposals is to include in the Law on Games of Chance an obligation to dedicate a certain part of the money to Montenegrin sports, as was the case in one period.
Serbia: 180 million euros for the National Stadium
Serbia's budget deficit will be reduced from 3,9 percent this year to 3,3 percent of GDP in 2023. Within this reduction of the deficit in the state coffers, one of the areas whose revenues have been cut the most is sports. 2023 billion dinars or about 4,93 million euros have been set aside for the Ministry of Sports in the budget for 42, which is in the Parliament and expects to be adopted. The budget of this ministry will be smaller than this year's by as much as 34 percent of the 7,5 billion dinars (63,9 million euros) spent this year.
The item development of the sports system was reduced by 1,3 billion dinars, but expenditure on salaries increased from 33,2 million to 38,65 million dinars.
In 2022, Serbia organized the world championship in rowing and the world championship in wrestling, for which it allocated a total of 685 million dinars or 5,8 million euros.
In addition to these two competitions, the program item for international and national sports competitions was reduced from 493,35 million dinars or 4,2 million euros this year to only 150 million dinars (1,2 million euros) in the following year.
66,6 million dinars or 567.000 euros will be allocated for the development of sports infrastructure, which is a decrease of 3,3 million dinars compared to this year.
Expenditures for institutions in the field of physical culture will be reduced from 969.8 million dinars (8,25 million euros) this year to five million euros in 2023.
Budget allocations for sports in 2023 will amount to 0,38 percent of the total budget.
In relation to the number of inhabitants, which according to the estimate of the Republic Institute of Statistics is 6.797.105, only 725 dinars per inhabitant (6,17 euros) are allocated from the budget for sports.
However, the budget of the Ministry of Sports does not include the investments planned for the construction of stadiums in Serbia, as well as the national stadium.
For the National Stadium in 2023, as well as in 2024 and 2025, seven billion dinars will be allocated, that is, 60 million euros each, and a total of 180 million euros in the next three years.
Also, within the framework of the Ministry of Capital Investments, five billion dinars or 43,3 million euros will be allocated for the construction of sports infrastructure. For the years 2024 and 2025, an allocation of 40 and 38,3 million euros is planned for sports infrastructure from the budget of this ministry.
This does not include local government grants for sport at the local level.
One of the channels through which the state finances sports, and above all the largest sports clubs, are state and public enterprises.
As a rule, the jerseys of the biggest basketball and football clubs feature Telekom Srbija in majority state ownership, EPS or NIS, in which the state owns about 30 percent.
Information on the amounts of sponsorships of state enterprises to sports clubs is generally not publicly available information, but the Minister of Finance Siniša Mali announced a few months ago how much the state had helped the biggest Serbian clubs in the previous 10 years.
"FK Crvena zvezda received 17,6 million euros from the state. If you add 45,8 million from Gazprom to that, then a total of 63,54 million euros has been received by FK Crvena Zvezda from the state and sponsors in the last ten years. FK Partizan received 14 million euros in the same period," said Mali.
According to him, from 2012 to 2022, KK Crvena Zvezda received 26 million euros from the state, and Basketball Club Partizan received 24,4 million euros from the state and 8,9 million euros from NIS.
Croatia: Athletes to admire, investments at the bottom of the EU rankings
Despite the fact that in terms of investment in sports, Croatia is at the bottom of the list of European Union countries, athletes are highly competitive in world sports and as such are admired. Because, in terms of their reach, they are often ahead of some countries (often larger ones) that invest more, so many observers wonder what the secret is.
And it should be sought in the psychophysical talent of the Croatian man and the enthusiasm of the profession rather than in the sports system, which cannot be said not to exist, but is certainly not as good as it might seem to someone from the outside.
What is certainly good is that the rulers do not get carried away by the fact that we are good despite low investments, so they do not reason in the style of "why should we allocate for sports when we are doing well anyway". Moreover, it should be noted that state investments are growing, which is best illustrated by the figures presented by the Croatian Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
And they say that HRK 2016 million (EUR 215 million) was invested in Croatian sports in 28,5, and that in 2022 this amount will be HRK 438 million (EUR 58 million).
And the distribution of the mentioned funds for 2022 looked like this: umbrella sports associations received 292 million kuna (38,6 million euros), 80 million kuna (10,6 million euros) went to sports infrastructure, 29 million to major sports events kuna (3,8 million euros), 18 million kunas (2,4 million euros) for local sports and three million kuna (400 thousand euros) for the training of non-swimmers ("Hrvatska pliva").
And the first projections for the pre-Olympic year 2023 say that this amount, thanks to the provisions of the newly adopted Sports Law, will amount to more than half a billion kuna, or about 70 million euros. HRK 23 million (three million euros) will be spent on national scholarships for top athletes of the first, second and third categories, and nine million kuna (1,2 million euros) will be spent on pension and health care for top athletes of the first category (only they are entitled to it) ).
The new thing in the Law is that the state will help local sports - through county sports communities to clubs in the most underdeveloped parts and those that invest the least in sports - for coaches and equipment (balls, mats...) for children and youth up to 18 years of age. The news is that from now on the right to receive permanent compensation - in addition to the athletes who won medals at the Olympic, Paralympic and Deaf Olympic Games - will also have the right to the coaches who brought them to this, in the amount of two million kuna (260 thousand euros). And unlike Olympic medalist athletes, who acquire this right at the age of 45, in the case of coaches, it comes into effect at the age of 55. Because coaching careers last much longer than those of athletes.
The total investment of the central government and all units of local and regional level is currently more than one and a half billion kuna, or 200 million euros. And in addition to local scholarships, this amount also includes annual state awards for top sporting achievements - for medalists from the world's biggest competitions - which amount to between HRK 12 and 16 million, i.e. in the range of EUR 1,6 to 2,2 million. Of course, the biggest prizes go to the winners of Olympic medals, so medalists in individual sports receive HRK 208.000 (EUR 27.500), silver HRK 130.000 (EUR 18.400) and bronze HRK 92.000 (EUR 12.200). The athletes and team members receive the same amount, and their coaches are also rewarded, 170.000 kuna (22.500 euros) for gold, 92.000 kuna (18.400 euros) for silver and 72.000 kuna (9.530 euros) for bronze. Athletes (and their professional staffs) are also awarded for success and for honors at world and European championships in Olympic and non-Olympic sports, in proportion to the frequency of major competitions, as some sports have world and European championships every two years and some every year.
Croatia is in the company of a small number of countries that have a kind of sports pensions, i.e. permanent monetary compensation for sports excellence of around 200 former athletes, and they are on an annual basis around HRK 18 million (EUR 2,4 million).
It is also worth noting the action started in 2017, when the state subsidized tuition fees for top athletes was launched, through which more than 200 athletes have gone through so far, amounting to two million kuna (260 thousand euros) per year.
Aware that due to the size of the event, the size of the country and the insufficient infrastructure, Croatia will never be able to host the Olympic Games or the World Football Championship, the Croatian Government invests in large sports events of smaller dimensions, such as the European Water Polo Championship held this year in Split, which the state helped with HRK 7,5 million (one million euros). And the organizers of one of the races of the World Rally Championship (WRC) received equally valuable support. Of course, the organizers of standard competitions such as the World Ski Cup race on Sljemen (Snežna kraljica) or the athletic Hanžeković memorial, an athletic meeting of the Continental Tour Gold category, are not exempt from financial assistance.
It seems that the first man of Croatian sports, the long-time president of the Croatian Olympic Committee, Zlatko Mateša, is also satisfied with all these developments:
"We have to admit that there is a tendency for government investments in sports to grow, so thanks to that, we managed to overcome these pandemic years in a satisfactory way. The government helped the clubs and employees in sports, but it did not affect those who make a living from sports. We managed to fulfill all our obligations according to our budget and the users will get everything that was foreseen. Therefore, I do not see that there are serious problems at the level of national associations and all our problems are reduced to clubs and unsatisfactory and neglected sports infrastructure, which HOO does not deal with. And the problem of the clubs should be solved through the use of European funds.
Mateša is also satisfied, although not completely, with the new Law on Sports.
"The law is a great step forward and opens up possibilities that did not exist before, and that is first of all the involvement of the relevant ministry towards local sports, in the context of using European funds for the reconstruction and construction of infrastructure. What still needs to be done is to make investing in sports attractive from a tax point of view. And that is perhaps the most important solution to the situation with the clubs."
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Football is a barometer of society
The Law on Sports of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an issue on which sports collectives, political parties, sports analysts and finally fans and sports fans have been fighting for years.
There are, just like every other BiH. to the question, conflicting opinions about what is not good. It is prevalent that the biggest problem of sports is the impossibility of privatizing sports collectives, so that they function as joint-stock companies, but are already defined as associations of citizens, which cannot be managed by an ownership structure. In this way, it is difficult to attract investors willing to support the work of the clubs with larger funds, because the ownership structure is unclear and there are no guarantees that in the future they will be able to make autonomous decisions and return the investment.
The legislation is actually largely similar to that of the former state, but apart from rare exceptions, there are no state or private companies that have an obligation or feel a social responsibility to ensure long-term stable financing of local sports teams or successful individuals.
Clubs are often financed by local levels of government, which at the same time establish management structures, so the connection with politics is extremely strong, and the allocation of funds is often done along party lines. There are countless such examples and they are not limited to a specific sport, and the long-term stability of such collectives is very questionable and usually their existence is threatened when the government structures change.
Nobody essentially has an obligation to finance sports, and the complex political situation and the concept of the national key, which is clearly expressed in sports, tie the hands of those who would like to do something. From year to year, individual national teams are formed and disbanded again. Situations like this year's, when the Bosnia and Herzegovina basketball team almost missed the European Championship due to lack of money, do not surprise anyone. It is the second most popular national team, right after football. If there is not enough money and will to finance it, then those in smaller sports are practically fighting a hopeless battle.
Changing the law on sports according to other, less vocal opinions, would not bring anything without a complete change of attitude towards sports. In support of these claims is the fact that some football teams, such as FK Sarajevo or FK Tuzla City, have financiers who are de facto owners, although they are not on paper.
In the specific example of FK Sarajevo, this was made possible through a change in the club's statute in 2012, by which a place in the club's assembly is linked to the purchase of management roles. In other words, decisions about the club are made by the person who finances it, and this example shows that opportunities to find investors still exist within the current legal framework.
Sarajevo did stabilize through this kind of change, but it did not achieve the expected breakthrough and failed to achieve dominance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. football. This club has the largest budget in BiH of all sports collectives, but its 10 million KM per year (about 5 million euros) is certainly not enough for a serious breakthrough on the international stage.
Assumptions for such a thing BH. there really is no sport. From the infrastructure, through the lack of funds, to the very attitude towards sport as one of the national symbols. As the late Ivica Osim liked to say: "Football is the barometer of society." What is the state of society, that is how football is played." This thought of Osim could be applied to the entire sport in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the result would be the same. Sport is a really good mirror of society. And we should not be surprised that it is bad.
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