Football associations defend themselves: Corona aid and strict controls in focus!

Football associations defend themselves: Corona aid and strict controls in focus!

The Austrian national soccer associations vehemently defend themselves against allegations of illegally state-consuming corona wages. Six associations, including Lower Austria, Vorarlberg, Burgenland, Carinthia, Vienna and Styria, have received a total of almost 1.7 million euros in support. Upper Austria, Salzburg and Tyrol, on the other hand, refrained from state aids, such as Vol.at reported.

The Styrian Association, under the direction of ÖFB interim president Wolfgang Bartosch, emphasizes that it is a duty to examine and use all available funding opportunities. "In the sense of the duty of care, it is necessary for the non -profit organization," said Bartosch. In order to ensure a fair distribution of funds, the applications were comprehensively checked by external auditors and the AWS funding bank and then confirmed how oe24.at

Use of the aid money

The funds obtained were used for various purposes, including immediate help for acutely endangered clubs, infrastructure funding for club homes and places, recovery measures for players and officials as well as for securing jobs. These beneficial measures are subject to strict requirements that differed from the conditions for commercial companies, according to Vol.at .

All associations involved confirmed similar usage patterns of the funds. So they found that the Corona pandemic had far-reaching effects on sport in Austria. The football associations in particular reported a dramatic loss of membership caused by pandemic.

influence on membership numbers

According to an analysis, team and martial arts, especially football, have suffered partly drastic declines in the number of members. The number of football players dropped from 440,029 at the end of 2019 to only 247,649 at the end of 2023, which corresponds to over 40% less. In contrast to this, sports such as tennis and climbing have significant growth, since the tennis association has benefited from the successes of its athletes since the reopening in May 2020 and the climbing season flourished, such as Sportsbusiness.at performed.

The support from state aid seems to be justified in the eyes of the associations in order to maintain the structures in football and other team sports during these difficult times. In this context, however, the discussion about the allocation and use of these funds remains present.