Franco: “The CSD will put in the hands of the autonomies 48 million euros this year to modernize sports facilities”
The Autonomous Communities will directly manage about 125 million euros in the next three years from the total amount of 300 million euros
Madrid, 13 July 2021.- The Higher Sports Council (CSD) today hosted the meeting of the Sectoral Commission of Sport with the assistance of the directors and general directors of the sports field of all the autonomous governments, and in which the Secretary of State for Sport, José Manuel Franco, assured the granting in 2021 of a budget of 48 million euros to the autonomous communities to modernise their sports facilities.
The main focus of the meeting was the presentation of the strategic lines of action in sport linked to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Economy in Spain financed with the European Recovery Funds. The president of the CSD has broken down the three investments in which this project will be articulated: the Digitalization plan of the sports sector (75.6 mill. ), the Ecological Transition plan for sports facilities (146.5 mill.) and the Social Plan of the Sports Sector (77.8 mill. ).
It will be within the Ecological Transition plan of sports facilities that this territorialization of European funds will take place. Franco has detailed that “those 48 million euros that we will put into regional hands this year will serve to modernize sports facilities through digitization, accessibility and energy efficiency.” There are more than 50 technification and high-performance centers throughout Spain that can benefit from the amount.
The Higher Sports Council will shortly send to the Autonomous Communities the proposal of criteria for the territorialization of funds, for whose distribution the opinions and valuations of the autonomous governments will be taken into account – those valuations, said Albert Soler, general director of Sports – must return to the CSD before the end of July.
The Council hopes that, with the common work of all the authorities of the autonomous communities and autonomous cities, it will be possible to establish an optimal roadmap for the recovery and promotion of Spanish sport in the coming years.
Opportunity for innovation and structural readaptation
According to José Manuel Franco, “we must all congratulate ourselves on the fact that Spain has been the only country in the European Union that has incorporated sport as a tractor element in the Recovery Plan”.
“But it is not only a question of alleviating the considerable losses generated by the crisis, which have put at risk the social and organisational fabric that sustains it, but above all, it is a question of taking this opportunity to redefine and restructure the sector by taking on new challenges and shaping new horizons so that Spanish sport can take root in the world’s avant-garde,” said the president of the CSD.
The modernization of an area as transversal as sport generates important synergies for the rest of the sectors of the national economy such as tourism, health or education. It is a sector that directly employs 220,000 people and represents almost 3% of the GDP of Spain, being also an engine of young job creation, since 75% of the jobs generated by the sports sector are for people under 40 years old.
Franco has defined as “the axis of priority action of the Government”, endorsed by Europe, the work to achieve “real equality between men and women, with the definitive impulse to women’s sport, the improvement of the visibility of women sportswomen, the promotion of the female role also in the management and direction of entities and the improvement of the working conditions of sportswomen”.
“We are faced, in short, with an enormous challenge to recover the sector but also with a great opportunity for innovation and structural readaptation,” he said.
