SPORT, THE WORST REFORM FOR GRASSROOTS SOCIETIES

POLITICS | 06/12/2024 | 08:15
di Silvano Antonelli
Every time I come across the so-called sports reform, I break out in hives. It would have been better to call it a "law for the regulation of sports work relationships".
That it was necessary to regulate this matter, disciplining the various employment opportunities along with its implications for protection, taxation, and contributions, while also draining ambiguous areas more commercial than sporting, no one can deny. But for sports, in its sense of promotion, support, and development, God help us if anything useful is found in this "reform".
Transparency is always necessary, but in pursuing it, the legislator should have remembered that in this case too, it was best not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
For grassroots societies, things have become terribly complicated. For them, an increase in expenses of all kinds without facilities and contributions that could somehow rebalance the new setup, while conversely, many new opportunities have been introduced for accountants, tax experts, labor consultants, and whoever else can be listed for services that are, obviously, exclusively paid. Even members preferably become collaborators with a contractual relationship.
From hypocrisy to the most authentic punch in the stomach when, as in the case of FCI (and not only), respecting CONI's guidelines, in chapter 1 point 9 of the statute it is written: "FCI considers volunteerism as an irreplaceable basis for its technical, organizational, and functional activity". "Give me a break," Totò would say. When will this ever happen if not even cleaning the headquarters can be done for free by some willing member!
It seems to me that the legislators, governments, and politicians who have progressively alternated on this "reform" have messed up spectacularly!
For a true sports reform and thus an improvement of the entire sector, the expectations of societies should have been balanced, namely the facilities and support for sports activities, from school to the use of public spaces, with the rules that the State must consistently demand be applied in terms of transparency and correctness of performances and specific activities granted.
Here instead, the matter seems to have gone quite differently: the sports world, those who produce sports at the grassroots, has been literally ignored and not listened to. Let's also say not represented by various federations and sports promotion entities, incapable of even a minimal united action.
It is a sports reform where the legislator has imposed and sports have simply endured! A shame that deserved and still deserves a street demonstration or a Sunday suspension of all sports activities.
But beyond this, and it's a lot, what literally drives me crazy is that all sports associations must, by December 31st of this year, provide for the appointment of the so-called Safeguarding Responsible (a safeguarding figure), that is, the subject to whom would be entrusted the task of monitoring and preventing abuses, violence, and discrimination.
The issue in itself has its dignity of purpose, it is a concern that should always have been had and that many, let's say in passing, have also known how to manage with wisdom and scrupulousness.
But from this, to make it a widespread concern of possible abuses, violence, and discrimination, it seems to me that the issue goes far beyond any realistic fear, even absurd and unjust. At this rate, we could soon have, not to be excluded, complaints because one's child was excluded from the formation of this or that match, from this or that cycling event, or because they were energetically reprimanded by their coach, perhaps bringing up skin color or something else.
Sport, by its nature and function, is the sector, after school, to which the State – through private action – assigns the role of educating and forming boys and girls from childhood to late adolescence. According to principles of welcome, solidarity, equality, gender sensitivity, non-violence, avoiding any practice that could even slightly touch on hypotheses of discrimination based on economic condition, race, sex, faith, and culture. Places where, through competition, in addition to discovering one's own dimension, one also learns to respect the value of others, the necessity of rules, discipline aimed at the best sporting and civic consciousness.
Now instead, the many presidents and directors of amateur sports associations, who cannot decline to others any of the civil and criminal responsibilities that the law imposes on them, and for whose work the statutes exclude any compensation, must also suffer the ignominy of being, so to speak, watched in their own home, suspected of possible deviations precisely in the house they themselves have erected (when others would never do so in the world), precisely to spread and defend certain values.
No one should ignore the risks and temptations always possible, but this way of making a generalization, in my opinion, offends the spirit and honor of these directors, men and women, and hurts the pride of many who have chosen sport as a school of life and sometimes of redemption after having made mistakes.
The activity of monitoring behaviors within one's own association is – and must be – an integral part of the role of each individual director, to be implemented in the most appropriate ways without delegating it to specific or external figures.
And if this activity was to be strengthened or introduced where lacking, for an effective prevention strategy, more than Safeguarding Responsible, specific training paths should have been promoted and made mandatory – capable of combining awareness and responsibility – to be realized within CONI and/or federal structures, with the right involvement of technicians, athletes, directors, and parents. Yes, even parents, who cannot think of parking their children at sports societies as if they were packages to be dropped off and picked up at certain times. It's hard to believe that in a time where parents on the roadside or sideline feel more competent than their children's own coaches and technicians, they do not feel and do not have the ability to observe, follow, and question their children about how they are trained and brought to compete. At least let me believe this.
For this Safeguarding role (wasn't there an Italian term?), someone suggests that adequate skills should be had, of a legal, psychological, sociological order, etc., just to feed the mill of various Orders and Professional Registers, subjects that in any case, it's good to say, would not relieve the responsibility of society presidents, but only help them to be more cautious.
Much better, in my opinion, that these "watchers" be appointed from among the directors of individual associations. Subjects of normal common sense, who habitually frequent both training and competition venues, who by definition operate (free of charge) for the good name of the association and its members. Guarantee figures without having to make their presence obvious to provide guarantees.
I would so much like sport, with sensitivity, delicacy, and responsibility, to know how to self-determine to defend its historic and irreplaceable function.