The Swedish Sportdiving Confederation (SSDF) spent money on cheerleading, go-kart racing and bowling when the national teams had to pay their own way to the 2019 World Championships in Graz.
The latest SSDF Annual Report, which covers two years instead of one, makes special note of a change in the organization’s policy. The auditor’s Note 2 states:
“Under the course of 2019 both a Swedish National Championship and World Championship took place. All the senior athletes, in contrast to previous years, paid for a large part of their costs themselves.” [emphasis added]
Does “large” mean 80 percent, 90 percent or 99 percent? Kumar Thirugnanam, the official auditor, does not elaborate, but that fact that he took the trouble to make note implies that it was a significant policy change.
So, beginning in 2019 the underwater sports federation of Sweden decided not to pay the costs of underwater rugby at senior championships, even when the national teams represented the country. In 2019, a total of 780,000 kronor (75,000 euro) went to cover travel, food and lodging at competitions. Given that the number of freedivers and underwater photographers in competitions is limited, it seems that rugby players and their sponsors came up with hundreds of thousands of kronor when the Federation was unwilling to contribute.
(note: 100 SEK to EUR = 9.61000 Euros)
Is this in anyway formally wrong?
The single largest source of SSDF income is state support in the form of subsidies. In 2019, the total revenue of SSDF was over 5.5 million kronor (530,000 euro), according note 2 of the annual report. A large chunk of this, over 2.2 million kronor, came from state subsidies.
Why was it necessary to stop supporting senior competitions out of subsidy revenue? After all, isn’t some of the Swedish Sport Confederation subsidy actually earmarked for elite competition and national teams?
Confederation clarification
Peter Eriksson, Controller for approximately 1.8 billion kronor (173 million euro) in state subsidies at the Swedish Sport Confederation, explained that SSDF was fully within its rights to dispose of its subsidy income as it saw fit.
“The federation decides itself what activity to spend the money [from so-called Special Federation funding] on,” he explained. “Most federations use this support for their administration, personnel costs and office rent. But federations can allocate the money as they see fit.”
SSDF, he added, had received a national team subsidy of 50,000 kronor (4,800 euro) in 2019:
“It’s up to the federation to determine exactly where to put the money as long as it goes to the national team area of activity. It could be everything from a training camp, a championship, test activity, compensation to national team coaches, etc.”
In 2019, the Federation also received 25,000 kronor (2,400 euro) to visit a “promising future sports environment” with respect to its underwater rugby women’s national team, according to Eriksson.
In short, the Swedish Sport Confederation only allocates a very small amount of earmarked money for the national teams and there is no obligation to support the senior national teams at international events.
In fact, SSDF did have money for go-kart racing, bowling and cheerleading in 2019. On the 26-27th of September, the members will have a chance to question the Chairman, Board of Directors and Auditor about the accounts. The General Assembly will vote whether or not to accept the economic decisions of SSDF’s leaders during the past two years.