The sports clubs are now starting a recovery campaign. New memberships are subsidized by up to 75 percent.
During the corona pandemic, Austria's sports clubs lost a quarter of their members. With the “comebackstronger” initiative by Sport Austria and the Ministry of Sport, the trend should now be reversed. Anyone who joins a sports club by the end of the year only has to pay 25 percent of the membership fee. Nine million euros are available for this, as Sports Minister Werner Kogler (Greens) and Sport Austria President Hans Niessl announced at a press conference on Monday.
According to a representative study by Statistics Austria from the third quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 (12,390 respondents), only 1.6 million Austrians are members of sports clubs. That is 550,000 less than in 2017. This is attributed to the corona pandemic, due to which numerous sports facilities were closed for months. On average, 18 percent of Austrians were recently members of a sports club, with men (22 percent) being much more club members than women (13 percent).
117 million euros in support
The Ministry of Sport would like to counteract this downward trend together with the local sports organizations as an initiative “comebackstronger”. A package of 57 points has been developed, some of which have already been implemented. Now, for example, the funds for the programs “Moving children healthily 2.0” and “Moving in the park” are being increased and with “Jackpot.fit”, people who have previously been inactive in sports are to be addressed.
Niessl mentioned that around 6,400 sports clubs (out of 15,000) had already been supported “quickly and unbureaucratically” with a total of 117 million euros. “That is the prerequisite that the structures have been preserved and that it was possible to restart the sport and I would like to thank you for that.”
“Can also sail against the wind”
For the first time, there will be a “Long Sports Day” in schools and sports clubs on September 24th, followed by “Austria's largest sports festival” in the Ernst Happel Stadium on September 25th, where over 100 sports clubs will show their skills be invited to participate. Under the title “Sportbonus”, from September 1st to December 31st, “exercise enthusiasts” can save up to 75 percent of the membership fee of the desired sports club (max. 90 euros per person) if they have not yet been a member of that club this year.
Minister of Sport Kogler also thanked the sports organizations for the good cooperation and was pleased that “we have succeeded in amateur sports in keeping most of the volunteers” and “the structure has essentially been preserved”, which we can now build on. It is now important, however, that “as many as possible” clubs register on sportbonus.at in order to benefit from the subsidies. “The wind sometimes blows against us. That doesn't matter – we can sail against the wind and we have to. We can't wait until the pandemic is over – who knows when that will be,” concluded Kogler.
