Opinion – Marcelo Damato: It’s time to take sport to every city in Brazil

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The Lula government (PT) has the chance of not repeating with Sport what all its predecessors, including itself, did: choosing the minister’s name with affection and forgetting the government’s program.

After administrations that prioritized sporting mega-events and a presidency that hardly spoke the word sport, there is yet another opportunity to focus on Brazilians and make Sport a State policy.

This means that all future federal governments will have to follow a guideline, making spending or inaction difficult.

The change starts by defining what is the priority for those who finance it: us, the Brazilians.

Just looking at the structure of sport management in the federal government, one can already see the error in direction.

Of the four sports secretariats of the Ministry of Citizenship, three are geared towards the top: Football, High Performance and Parasport.

For everything else –which includes school sports, sports training and physical activity–, there is only one: Sport, Education, Leisure and Social Inclusion.

Three secretariats serve a few hundred thousand athletes, and one serves hundreds of millions of athletes and potential athletes.

Para-sports in Brazil only have a few thousand athletes, but, as it wins many medals every four years, it is awarded with a secretariat. Football, which works practically on its own, has another.

On the other hand, school sport has millions of practitioners, but, as it does not appear in the media, it is in the background.

The scale needs to change. High performance is important, it reinforces the national identity –just look at the party in Buenos Aires–, but not only is it expensive, but, to be inspiring, it needs to be coupled with public policies.

TV and social networks can no longer be the absolute priority for sports management. As the Argentinean Ruben Magnano said, when he coached the Brazilian basketball team: “in Brazil, you start building a house from the roof”.

The first step is to recognize that the federal government cannot act in every city. Each place, for geographical, cultural and social reasons, practices sport in its own way.

As in health, city halls are the ones who know. But they need resources.

In this legislature, Congress took a big step forward with the National Sports Plan. It creates a financing mechanism for states and cities similar to the SUS.

Through the PNE, it will also be possible to allocate parliamentary amendments to sport, within the health quota.

To take advantage of the inspirational role of sporting events to stimulate children’s practice, a more economical idea would be to support the internalization of adult state championships and youth categories.

In capital cities, these tournaments are almost secret because of how little attention they attract. In a smaller city, the effect is different.

Finally, the choice of minister is very important. All occupants of the position so far have been people with little or no experience in sports management. Few had a connection to the sport. They arrived as sport ambassadors or through political agreements.

Lula needs to choose someone who is in the business. And don’t associate management and Instagram.

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