On Monday, an announcement appeared on the website of the Ministry of Education and Culture with the least amount of noise, the consequences of which are very significant in the power relations of Finnish elite sports.
Until now, the Ministry has directed the sum of money earmarked annually to the top sports unit of the Finnish Olympic Committee, which the unit has distributed to the associations of summer and winter sports as training enhancement support.
Now the Office of the Chancellor of Justice has issued a statement in which it considers the procedure to be in conflict with Article 124 of the Constitution. The section concerns the assignment of a public administrative task to someone other than an authority. Until now, the Olympic Committee has distributed public funds to sports federations. Now the procedure is changing, and in the future the ministry will distribute the enhancement subsidies itself and they will also be applied for directly from the ministry.
Hard setback
The legal process, which originally lasted for years, was initiated by the National Audit Office, which saw the Olympic Committee’s role in the matter as problematic. The Olympic Committee is not a public authority, but a registered association, a non-governmental organization.
The statement of the Office of the Chancellor of Justice and its implementation in the ministry is a very hard prestige setback for the Olympic Committee’s elite sports unit, because the distribution of money to enhance the sports has been the core of the unit’s expert activities. For the year ending, the unit distributed a total of about 6.5 million euros in enhancement support for summer and winter sports.
From now on, the unit’s role changes from a money distributor to a provider of recommendations and expert opinions at most.
Acting director of the unit manager Jaana Tulla confirmed the matter in an interview with Urheilu on Tuesday. He saw no reason to dramatize the consequences of the Chancellor’s Office’s statement, but believes that the cooperation between the Olympic Committee and the Ministry in elite sports matters will continue to be close:
– The unions were informed about the matter very quickly. Now, the elite sports unit acts as a spokesperson in the process, but the cooperation towards the ministry works and we do this in a good spirit.
46 alliances met
Tulla reminds that the top sports unit has met 46 sports federations in the sports competitions held during the fall, which have presented their top sports plans at the meetings. Acting the manager believes that the ministry listens carefully when considering support decisions when the unit’s experts open their data bank regarding meetings.
When you ask Tulla, what will be left of the top sports unit in general, if the money and the power to distribute it are taken away from it, the answer is as follows:
– Minister of Sports Sandra Berqvist (r) convenes a round table discussion and all relevant influencers of Finnish elite sports will attend. I believe that the Olympic Committee will definitely find a role in Finnish top sports in the future, where every actor has to steel himself in order to improve the results.
According to Tulla, the elite sports unit will make its own presentation to the ministry about enhancement subsidies as early as next week, so that the sports can prepare for the future. He is convinced that the proposal is so well thought out and justified that it will very carefully hold its own in the consideration of the ministry as well.
Challenging schedule
He admits the schedule is challenging, and at least it is from the point of view of the sports federations.
While the summer sports in both 2022 and 2023 learned about their support decision already on December 5, the ministry now says that it will open the entire application process only on November 29, i.e. Friday of this week. This probably means that the support decisions will be prolonged, i.e. significant uncertainty for the species about the operating conditions until at least January.
– We have been aware of this process, but admittedly, this timing was a bit surprising from the point of view of support decisions. Now they are getting longer, which of course creates question marks around the operation, comments the CEO of the Sports Association Harry Aalto.
In the previous one summer sports in the support decision for athletics, 667,000 euros of enhancement support was released from the top sports unit, which is about a third of the total investment of top sports by the Sports Confederation.
From the point of view of sports federations, it is essential to get support decisions as early as possible, so that they can secure extension contracts for example for their youth Olympic coaches, of which the Sports Federation has eight. Their salary is typically taken care of along the axis of the federation-sports academy-Olympic Committee.
– Likewise, it is important to ensure that the athletes are able to continue their already long training season without interruption, even if the support decisions are extended even further.
Quick reaction
Aalto says that even though the situation is far from ideal, the Sports Confederation reacts quickly. It intends to ensure the continuation of coaches’ contracts and the athletes’ resources in all situations, and trusts that the ministry’s support decision will be positive for the association, even if it is completed clearly later than usual.
The sports federation has a reaction buffer in its coffers, but many smaller federations are in a much more critical situation due to the significant prolongation of the support decision.
CEO Aalto did not want to publicly assess the future of the elite sports unit in a situation where only expertise has been left there without money. After the Olympic Games in Paris, the sports federation profiled the Olympic Committee as a critical sports organization.
– The investigation of Finnish elite sports is ongoing until the turn of the year, and the Olympic Committee will receive a new leader this weekend. There is no reason to speculate at this point.
Sports enhancement subsidies are a different matter as for athletes tax-free sports grants to be distributed. They have always been distributed and decided directly by the Ministry of Education and Culture, in cooperation with the elite sports unit.
Significant use of power
Director General of the Ministry of Education and Culture Esko Beach says that the change is related to the question of at which point the amount of enhancement subsidies and the granting process becomes the use of public power.
– We have assessed that we are starting to reach the stage where it can be judged, at least according to a stricter interpretation, that the question involves such a significant use of public power that a public authority should handle it, says Ranto.
If there have been problems with the legality of the current procedure, why has the practice continued until now?
– Up until now, the overall evaluation has been such that it is not quite at the point where it is a question of a significant use of public power.
Ranto says that the ministry has held clarifying discussions with the Chancellor of Justice’s office and as a result of these discussions ended up with a change.
– As far as I know, no official decisions have been issued outside of us.
– We want to ensure the legality of the process of this process even in the situation that the efficiency subsidies would possibly even increase even now.
On schedule, no power struggle
According to Ranno, the change in enhancement support will not affect athletes or coaches, because the same support money now only comes from a different operator. According to him, the salary payment of coaches, for example, is not threatened either.
– Even the Olympic Committee has not been able to pay that money until the state has a budget, and the state has given that money to the Olympic Committee.
– In practice, that top sports unit’s funding decision is always made at the beginning of the year in January-February. I would assume that the ministry will be able to stick to exactly the same schedule.
The position of the Olympic Committee has been hotly debated since the Paris Olympics. Ranto denies that the change is part of a power struggle between the ministry and the Olympic Committee.
– The ministry carries out the tasks that belong to it according to the current legislation, and the Olympic Committee, as an independent non-governmental organization, decides how it works. There is no power struggle.
– It’s a question of division of labor and I believe that the matter can be handled even in the new model with good cooperation.