The Ministry’s athlete grants need to be rethought. Money should be distributed to one athlete no more than seven times. The system is very unfair to young people, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen Sports journalist
A 7-player who put his career on hold Mary Huntington upset his mind After Urheiluin gave a speech to an official of the Ministry of Education and Culture last week. This told about the fate of the athlete grant in these situations. If a top athlete does not train or compete, like Huntington, who received a grant of 10,000 euros for this season, in the eyes of the payer, i.e. the ministry, it is comparable to quitting and is a reason to cut off the grant.
Of course, the official’s purpose was not to scratch the soul of the contestant, but as a person sitting on top of a common pile of money to justify the transparency of the mechanism in question.
Huntington is to be commended for his honesty. Almost a thousand Finnish athletes have benefited from the ministry’s tax-free athlete grant in less than 30 years. Almost everyone would not have put their grant in the guillotine like Huntington’s law, but instead “wounded” and smiled all the way to the ATM until the end of the grant period.
Huntington, which received an athlete grant totaling 40,000 euros, shares the 258th place in the all-time statistics with, for example, a snowboard star Enni Rukajärvi with. Rukajärvi, with a high income, often didn’t even bother to apply.
Important thing
In any case, Huntington raised a very important point, especially if you take the recently concluded under-23 European Athletics Championships in Espoo as a frame of reference. Of the 10 Finnish medalists of the Games, four did not even loose a hip in the most recent division. From gold medalists to those nearing the top even as adults Silja Kosonen got 20,000 and Saga Vanninen 10,000 euros, but Juho Alasaari only 6000 euros.
According to the criteria, you can get the biggest grant if you are at the absolute international top and a medal candidate for the next Olympic Games. With special consideration, it can also be obtained by a young person who is rapidly approaching this level. The middle pot asks for an established level among the 16 in the Olympic sports and at least a point view in the prestigious competitions. The smallest amount is earmarked separately for promising young people.
According to the records of the Research Center for Competition and Elite Sports, i.e. Kihu, the most sponsored Finnish athlete of all time is a parakeel Leo-Pekka Pace. He has received grants 20 times and a total of 343,000 euros. Skiers from unclassified current and ex-stars Kerttu Neck, Krista Pärmäkoski, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen and Riitta-Liisa Roponen are at the top of the 12 with pots of slightly more or less than 200,000 euros.
Niskanen and Pärmäkoski didn’t bother with the most recent division. The ministry has started to really, not just at the level of speeches, take into account the athlete’s real income and wealth accumulation and not just what is reported to the taxman at any given time.
The grant cannot belong to an athlete who has amassed a fairytale balance sheet for his company. This is not a sports criticism, because when extra money is pushed, few of us start checking the teeth of such a gift horse.
Thorough confusion
This was a good and fair reform, but now it would be time to shake up the system thoroughly and stop the unfair treatment of young people who really need the biggest grants.
Here are a couple of suggestions: in the future, one athlete could receive a grant no more than 6-7 times or a total of 100,000 euros. During that time, you have to be able to professionalize and business sports activities to a level where you don’t need joint money anymore.
Certain individual sports, which are the most fiercely contested in the world – such as sprinting, for example – must be examined through different binoculars than, with all due respect, even shot put. Even the hustle of the European top should be the basis for a large grant, because global success is as likely as Finnish hearsay.
The criteria are created by people and can be changed by them.
Pekka Holopainen
The author is a columnist based in Pori and the only sports reporter who has been selected as Journalist of the Year in Finland.
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