Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-07-Speech-4-011"
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"en.20000907.1.4-011"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking you for devoting this morning to sport. In eight days’ time, the Olympic Games will be opening in Sydney. Athletes will be gathered there from all over the planet. The results of the various competitions are not yet known; they are not predestined; in sport, anything can happen.
The first question concerns the protection of under-age sportspeople. We must be able to put an end to commercial transactions involving minors. Specific measures should be taken to protect the health of young athletes, especially to prevent any recourse to performance-enhancing drugs, and to ensure that they complete their education and vocational training. To that end, the subject has been placed on the agenda of the Council of Youth Ministers for its meeting on 9 November. I am very hopeful that, having regard to the 1994 Directive on the protection of young people at work, we shall be able to offer the prospect of precise recommendations on this point.
Secondly, I also wish to see measures taken to maintain the development policies of sports clubs. Sports federations and governments should be able, if they so wish, to take appropriate measures to protect the clubs that develop young talent. It must be possible to insert provisions such as a clause requiring young players to sign their first professional contract with the club where they have received youth training, perhaps with compensation proportionate to the cost of their training to indemnify the latter club if such a player is transferred. At the same time, the international sports authorities have a responsibility to take action to control club management in order to avoid excesses, especially in relation to transfers.
Thirdly, in the wider context, it seems to me that there is an urgent need to recognise the unique central role played by the federations. I believe it is necessary to acknowledge the key role of the sports federations in organising sports competitions, in formulating the rules of their respective sports and in awarding titles. This does not mean that I advocate vesting these rights in the federations without demanding anything from them in return. That is why I envisage that the recognition of these exclusive rights should be accompanied by the imposition on sports federations of precise duties and responsibilities relating to their obligation to serve the public interest and to redistribute their commercial revenue equitably.
Identifying the specific features of sport is an enormously complex undertaking. Significant progress in this direction is a matter of urgency. I believe we are caught up in a race against the clock. France has decided to make this a priority of its presidency. I have great faith in the contribution that will come from your Parliament. I have taken note, by the way, of your call for the inclusion of an article in the Treaty and see it as a manifestation of your will to ensure that due consideration is given to these concerns.
Let me turn now to the fight against doping, which is an absolute priority issue. I am also aware that the European Parliament shares this concern, as your reports and resolutions show. You know that it is a long and arduous struggle, one which has to be waged relentlessly for the sake of public health and the sporting ethic. Recent events show that we still have a long way to go. Be that as it may, I refuse to join the defeatists who want us to throw in the towel on the grounds that drugs are endemic in sport today. We need to enlist the support of the sporting community, but there is an equal need to enlist the support of governments and the European Union.
The World Anti-Doping Agency that has now been created owes its existence to the will of the European Union. The International Olympic Committee has established the objectives of its fight against the use of drugs at the Olympic Games in Sydney. Nevertheless, as you know, a debate is raging across the Member States of the European Union on the expediency of direct EU membership of the organs of the World Anti-Doping Agency and, hence, on whether the EU should help to fund the agency. I wish to lay particular emphasis on this point, because it has emerged from our exchanges with the European Commission that the latter will not commit itself to the participation of the European Union as such unless it receives a strong and unanimous political signal in favour of participation.
I, for my part, believe that we have the legal basis for participation. Doping is unquestionably a matter of public health. One need only consider the increase in the consumption of performance-enhancing drugs by young amateur sportspeople. It also has to do with the fight against trafficking and, thus, with police and customs cooperation. Lastly, the struggle against doping also relates to the development of research.
As is proposed in the report prepared by Mrs Zabell and adopted by the parliamentary committee, the aim would be for the European Union to be able to speak positively, with one voice, in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the Agency. While we await the resolution of the legal questions regarding the involvement of the European Union in the Agency, my Troika colleagues and I have established a liaison committee, which will be very useful. There will also be a need to ensure that the Agency grows in stature so that it has the power to act in every country. Public opinion, sportswomen, sportsmen and everyone who is interested in these Games expect these decisions to be taken. The credibility of the anti-doping effort depends on it.
Ladies and gentlemen, European sport is at the crossroads. I hope it will continue to be a field of dreams, just as I hope that it will keep giving young people the educational and integrative framework they need – in short, that it will remain a school of life for our children. But the greed that it arouses and the threat that emanates from such greed must be taken seriously. I am convinced that the clear positions you are preparing to adopt through these two reports will be a great asset in this debate. I wish to thank you for that and to tell you how fervently I hope that we shall be able to continue this work together.
The champions who are preparing to enter this field of dreams have their own schedules. Many are familiar with the world of professional sport, but, as you well know, all of them have at least two things in common. Firstly, their selection is the climax of several years of effort and of meticulous training, with volunteers, coaches and public and private resources all mobilised on their behalf. Secondly, and most importantly, they all began their sporting careers in an amateur club or at a school.
In order to promote sport, we must also – at the same time and as part of the same effort – promote local amateur clubs alongside top-level amateur and professional sport. Sport at the highest level is the stuff of dreams; it contributes to the development of mass sports and, through them, to social education. Elite sport, be it amateur or professional, receives global media coverage today. More and more men and women, whatever their age and their circumstances, are taking part in a sport. Sport has permeated the whole of society.
So, nobody here will be surprised to see how this human activity can sometimes be perverted by acts of violence or racism, or engender greed. Far be it for me to demonise the economic aspect of sport. Sport needs resources, and the public purse cannot provide all the necessary funding. It is not a matter of distinguishing between a pure form of sport which is untainted by money and a sponsored form of sport which is corrupt. No, the real question is a different one and may be expressed as follows: will the sporting community have the means to preserve the ethics of sport by harnessing the funds that flow into sport and ensuring that money does not rule sport?
Let us not beat about the bush. This problem is not one that will arise in twenty years’ time; it is already a problem today. Sporting events have become so attractive that financial interests seek to use them as a source of profits, even if it means sacrificing the ethics of sport and treating sportspeople as marketable commodities. Who has not witnessed the sale and purchase of sportsmen, some of whom are still very young? Who has not been shocked by the amounts that are paid for broadcasting rights or by the size of certain transfer fees? Who has not been alarmed at the sight of increasingly overcrowded sporting calendars? Who has not been concerned at the plans of certain private groups to create their own sports competitions, outside the jurisdiction of the national and international federations and on the basis of a single criterion, namely the size of the participating clubs’ budgets, as we have recently seen in association football and, subsequently, in basketball too?
What kind of sport do we want for the twenty-first century? The reply to this all-embracing, fundamental question depends on our response to the present situation. There are two options: having identified these excesses, we could consider that sport no longer depends on anything but the market or sportspeople on anything but their added value. In that case, we must apply the rules of competition and compound the present follies with a dose of deregulation, accepting, in the name of freedom of movement, the sale and purchase of youngsters aged between 18 and 20. The other option is to decide, on the basis of the European sporting tradition that has been developed in modern times, with its humanist values and voluntary structures, and in the light of the present situation, with all its economic and social implications, that we should re-equip the sporting community with the legal and political instruments it requires to protect the entire range of sporting activities within the framework of their respective federations.
This second option, which is supported by the French Presidency, does not mean adhering to the status quo, but actually requires innovative proposals from the sporting community itself – and I am gratified to see that these have been forthcoming on the question of transfers – and from governments with a view to combating the excesses that are affecting the sporting world and to developing practices designed to protect the associations and, hence, the cohesion of each sport.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has already devoted a huge volume of work to this option, and we are starting to move forward within the Council too. In June 1997, the sports ministers met at the Stade de France in Paris, and this was followed by meetings in Germany, Finland and Portugal. There have been the annex to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the conclusions of the Vienna Council and, last December, the Helsinki report on the subject of sport. Then, at Feira in Portugal, on the occasion of the Council meeting in June 2000, a clear call was made for the specific characteristics of sport to be taken into account in the application of Community policies.
It is the wish of the French Presidency that we should succeed in defining precisely what these specific characteristics are and what their recognition implies. To be absolutely precise, it is a matter of recognising that sport is rooted in the everyday practice of millions of men, women and children, in the commitment of hundreds of thousands of volunteers; that it is an irreplaceable instrument of informal education, of social inclusion, of access to citizenship; that sport is, above all, a means by which the individual can grow and flourish and can encounter other people in a spirit of mutual respect. Sport forms a whole. We need cohesion throughout the Union. I am delighted that this is emphasised in the report prepared by Mr Mennea and adopted by the Commission. This approach is the basis on which my counterparts in the other fourteen Member States and I have been working, in close collaboration with Commissioner Viviane Reding. After two meetings of the working parties established by the Portuguese Presidency, a meeting of the Troika, and a great many bilateral contacts with my counterparts from the other Member States, here are some of the objectives that seem to have attracted the broadest consensus within the Council."@en1
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