Austrian Sport Demands Politicians: Sports Facilities Offensive, Health Offensive

There will be elections next Sunday. Regardless of which party forms the government later, Sport Austria has made clear demands for the 2024-2029 legislative term. You can find the full list of requirements here!

These include:

• Financial Security for Non-Profit Organized Sports
• Sports/Exercise/Health – “Prevention rather than rehabilitation”
• Carry out an attack on the sports infrastructure
• Easing the burden on volunteer work – reducing bureaucratic hurdles and improving the funding system
• Legal Framework and Labor Relations in Sport
• Commitment to sport is first class.
• Austria hosts major sporting events
• Commitment to social and political issues
• Sports and Media

The Austrian Ice Hockey Federation supports these demands in order to promote the sport in general.

In the field of sports infrastructure, for example, an investment of one billion euros is required in the construction and renovation of sports facilities over the next five years. A very necessary measure if you take a look at the ice rinks and ice rinks in Austria.

More recently, investments were made in the ice rink infrastructure for the 2005 World Cup, which was held in Vienna and Innsbruck. This is how the TIWAG Arena in Innsbruck was created. The Kufstein Ice Arena was opened in 2005 and the Kitzbühel Sports Park in 2006. In 2008, Radenthein got its own ice rink, where the Women's U18 World Cup Division IB was held in September 2022 and is now closed.

President of Sport Austria Hans Nessel: “Sport is not an end in itself! If more people exercised, we could reduce the current costs of inactivity, which currently amount to 2.4 billion euros per year. If more people exercised, more people would enjoy healthier years and we would relieve the burden on our health system, which should actually be called the disease system at the moment. In other words: if you want to save the state money, you have to invest in sport and exercise, in elite and popular sports. Politics must be there to improve people's lives and must create the foundations for this: sport and exercise lead to well-being and health and must always be part of a positive concept of life. We as an interest group and of course politicians too must make this clear to people.”

Further information and data from the parties can be found at the following link:
https://www.sportaustria.at/de/interest representatives-and-sport policy/policies-demands-sportstaettenoffensive-und-gesundheitsoffensive