Olympic establishment mobilises to shout down Crawford Report
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It didn’t take long for the Olympic establishment to respond to the clear and present threat posed by yesterday’s Crawford Report. It mobilised quickly. AOC chief and Labor mate John Coates was straight out of the blocks and was punching every button he could. The report suggesting a reweighting away from Olympic sports toward sports that large numbers of Australians actually play was “insulting” to Olympians, Coates said, and, far worse, “unAustralian.” “I’m pissed off,” Coates declared. Coates, apparently, is in mystical communion with the Australian soul. “Is Mr Crawford suggesting the gold medals won in Beijing by Matthew Mitcham, Steve Hooker and Ken Wallace meant nothing to the Australian people?” Behold the fury of a parasitic industry facing the threat that taxpayers might stop handing them money. Quite apart from his Labor connections, Coates has a powerful media presence. Former Olympians and sports journalists — who rely on good relations with the Olympic movement to do their jobs — were quickly mobilised against the threat. “Don’t deny us chance to be world-beaters,” warned The Australian’s sports editor Wally Mason. “Crawford Report misses target,” wrote former Olympian and News Ltd journalist Mike Hurst. Fairfax’s Jacqueline Magnay made the serious accusation that the panel was biased, specifically toward AFL. Take anything you read by sports journalists on this subject with a grain — or perhaps a kilogram — of salt. Getting the Olympic mob offside is a career-threatening move in their field. Coates is angry about two things — the overall tenor of the report, which proposes we stop throwing money at elite sports which simply salve the national ego, and start directing money to mass participation sports and getting kids more involved, and the specific rejection of his proposal to lock in an extra — extra — $109m a year so that we can do better in minority sports that happen to be on the Olympic calendar. Because, horror of horrors, we might come fifth rather than third in modern pentathlon. If Coates thinks there is such an urgent case for spending more money on Olympic sports, perhaps the AOC can spend more of its own money. According to its own figures, over the last five years the AOC has raked in over $40m in sponsorship alone, and been given a further $74m in grants from the Australian Olympic Foundation, a trust with a $100m+ worth of assets under management. But the AOC has only spent $35m on funding for Olympic sports and athletes in that time, and another $29m on sending teams to Summer and Winter Olympics. Where, once you take away other costs like interest charges on earlier borrowings, has the other $40m+ gone? Not to Olympic sports that get the best part of $90m of taxpayer assistance a year. In fact, in 2008 the AOC gave to national sports federations the same amount of money it gave in 2005 despite attracting double the corporate sponsorship money. In truth, though, the Crawford Report fails to fully embrace the logic of its own position, that sports funding should be structured around specific and measurable policy goals. Sports funding, like any other public expenditure, must have some benefit to the community. Switching funding away from elite sports to mass participation sports would only reward sports that are already financially successful because of their popularity, whether through participant numbers or through commercial sponsorship and revenue from broadcast rights. The football codes and cricket don’t need any money from taxpayers and there would be no public benefit if they got it. If we’re serious about sports funding for public benefit, we should pouring it into programs that get all children — all of them — playing a sport. Apart from helping address child fitness, it would lift participation numbers in mainstream sports and expand the talent pool available for elite sports. A mass program enabling every school to participate in weekend sports programs would yield far more benefits than money for either elite or mass participation sports. What it wouldn’t provide is the warm inner glow that apparently burns in the hearts of many Australians whenever we win a meaningless piece of metal at a sporting frolic. And that, ultimately, is what Coates really has on his side — the certain knowledge that no politician will dare incur the wrath of sports obsessives by taking funding away from the Olympics and using it for something worthwhile. That would be unAustralian, see. |
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20 Comments
It’s nothing but entertainment, let it support itself. Many charities manage to do this.
Yep, how about all the sportspeople who make tons from endorsements put some of that money back into the sports machine that produced them?
With obesity on the rise, and a need to contain the health budget, it’s time money went into community sports, and getting people moving.
I don’t care if we never win another Olympic medal.
What about a poll on this one Crikey? I’d certainly vote for the Crawford recommendations to avoid the embarassments of all that nationalistic fervour one yet another self obsessed athlete pretends to be doing it for Australia. But does the government have the bottle in the face of the entrenched self interest of the elite sports movement and all who profit from it? I doubt it.
While we are at it, why not chuck Opera, Dance and the Yarts out the window as well?
The money could be better spent subsidising beer at the footy for the masses.
On a more serious note, any attempt to review and to prioritise spending on social programs such as this should be applauded. I look forward to getting my hands on a copy of the report and really trying to get my head around the issue.
As a further aside, it always struck me as wierd that the Olympics are staged over such a short time - a month or so. Is there any compelling reason not to spread the program over, say, 4 months, and make maximum use of the very expensive facilites and housing? The only losers would be the jetseeters who fly in for the duration and have the money and contacts to get tickets to both the Opening Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony.
For example, Mr Coates.
Well argued, Mr Keane. I expect Rudd and may of his colleagues agree personally. However, the olympics get enormous TV ratings in Australia and many of the viewers want to watch Aussies win medals. Since Rudd and his cabinet seem to avoid taking hard decisions I expect they will avoid upsetting the Australian olympics promoters.
Another strategy would be to spend $50 million on new TV programs to be broadcast at the same time as the olympics, thus reducing the olympics’ ratings so no-one notices that Australians aren’t winning medals.
@Gavin: If they get huge ratings, then the TV stations/sponsors/promoters can put some more back into the sports. The public can contribute by buying speedoes. (those that should wear them)
Sport cripples Australia. It monopolises the media. Half the damned news (inc. the ABC) is sport. Jocks now speak Latin (anterior cruciate ligament) interspersed with farnarkling banalities in English. As if there’s not enough sport mid-year, the whole sucking country closes down in early November til March, when sport and its melanomic corollary, the beach, takes over.
Oz needs to be at the bottom of the Olympic medal count.
If Oz is a cultural desert, stop irrigating sport.
Wasn’t it a Roman Emperor who suggested that the plebs should be given circuses to distract them from political reality.
Frankly I don’t understand the obsession that has developed over the Olympic games. As I remember it, admittedly memory is fallible, the Olympic games back in 1956 when they were held in Melbourne were not such a huge deal as now. More records, and better were obtained during such events as World Championships.
The monster that has been eating taxpayers funds world wide seems to have developed at a time when TV rights and sponsorships are delivering huge payments to what was once amateur sport.
Let the vested interests pay for their frolics rather than the poor bloody taxpayer. By all means let the various governments state and federal contribute and encourage amateur sport to get young people away from the TV and games consoles at least there would be a community benefit.
Spot on Bernard.
If the AOC and the pursuit of Olympic medals is so intrinsic to Australian identity and character, they should have no difficult raising the money they need directly from Australians rather than being yet another elite suckling at the trough of the ordinary tax payer.
The Olympic games is a platform for selling soap, filling hotels and aeroplanes and making politicians look good. The soap sellers, hotels and airlines should subsidise the Olympics not the taxpayer.
People who succeed at the Olympics these days need psychological counselling. They are self obsessed narcacistic personality types who have an extreme sense of entitlement that far exceeds their utility to society. Everybody around them has to make sacrifices to get them their reward and then we are told that it is their sacrifice that we should admire.
Get rid of the AIS, and put the money towards mental health.
If Coates wants the Olympics he can get his corporate mates to pay.
Spot on Frank Campbell. I tried to avoid sport by listening to ABC “News” Radio. Alas. They have been seduced into believing sport results are news. It’s pathetic.
There was a time when decent sport loving Australians looked askance at the athlete “factories” produced by Eastern Bloc countries such as East Germany to demonstrate the superiority of the Communist state. Australia’s historical competitive advantage because of our healthy lifestyle meant that despite a relatively small population we had a superior relative ranking in world competitions.
The amount of of money pumped into the Australian Institute Sport International it is a national disgrace to benefit a few elite athletes so John Coates can get his rocks off.
Personally I do not care where we rank in the Olympic Games provided our athletes do their best. There are much better ways allocate these resources for social benefit for the majority ofAustralians. Encouraging wider participation in sporting and exercise activities would be a good start. Let John Coates spend the money that he screws out of the Olympic system to support his athletes, and keep his hand out of the taxpayer’s pocket.
Sorry to bang on about this, but remember that we were sold the notion that the Sydney Olympics would put Australia on the map and that Sydney would be the equivalent of Nirvana. The hangover seems to be quite a long one.
Unfortunately, the government will reject Crawford and throw more money at the AOC. The jingoistic, Aussie Oi, Oi Oi bullshit that goes on at the Olympics is truly embarrassing but the pollies love it. We all recall the Qantas Jumbos taxying into the hanger for our spoilt brat atheletes to be welcomed home like war heroes. It’s pathetic. The money should be used to get kids off their bums in front of the TV and computers and reduce the obesity problem in this country. Alex
The IOC is the one of the most corrupt and unrepresentative of international boondoggles and the local sucker fish do nothing but contribute to the miasmic myth. If they’re so essential to ockerism, the beer & greasefood companies will beat a path to their door.
Meanwhile maybe kids might akshally start kicking a ball around or swinging at a ball, for FUN or with the backing of their parents’ suasage sizzle?
As an Australian who avoids sports at every opportunity, I’d far rather see my tax dollars supporting schools and hospitals. I go to the gym for my health - but avoid the times when sports dominates the airwaves so I don’t have to watch it while I warm up. The valorisation of sports and sports people is boring, nauseating, and expensive. Australia as a nation cannot afford to fund elite sports, while other far more worthy areas that actually improve Ozzie social capital are struggling.
Frank Campbell, ya made my day mate!
And, let’s face it, spending millions to watch a bunch of pumped up (and often drugged up) fanatics shave another millisecond off yet another record is the equivalent of watching paint dry. (To all those sports ‘announcers’ who try to break decibel and hyperbole records simultaneously: do you wet your pants at the same time?).
Anything to get a photo-op under an Aussie flag and all the jingoism you can cram into one more soundbite I suppose, but for the rest of us, it’s just a bloody nauseating waste of space.
So let’s make it really interesting, eh? Let ‘em take whatever steroids or ‘performance enhancing’ substances they like, until they all look like comic book freaks, and they can keep their trinkets (ah, medals) if they survive for the next month?
Chuck the charade, and make it mildly interesting for those of us who are bored senseless by it all.
@Liz Johnston
Sadly, on this issue, we are unrepresentative.
I don’t think that all funding should be cut - perhaps $1,000,000 per gold medal might be reasonable. That’s a little less than the current contribution, at least according to http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/08/08/40-million-its-how-much-each-gold-medal-costs-us/
Can we divert some of the sporting funds to increasing the number of gold medal winners for medical research so that they don’t have to leave the country to do the work they love and which benefits all of us?
As for team sports, how many Australian teams are more inspiring than Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital super 16?