Germany reorganizes its elite sport system: new agency expected to make decisions on millions for medals
The German Bundestag has opened a new phase of a major reform of elite sport. On 22 May, the lower house of parliament debated the government’s Sportfördergesetz for the first time, a law intended, for the first time, to regulate federal funding for elite sport uniformly and legally and to establish an independent Spitzensport-Agentur, an agency for elite sport. According to the Bundestag, after a one-hour debate, the draft was referred to committees, with further debate to be led by the Committee on Sport and Volunteering. This means that the reform, which has been discussed in Germany for years, is entering the parliamentary phase at a moment when sports policy is increasingly being linked to a possible bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The government in Berlin presents the reform as a response to two problems: weaker international competitiveness and an inconsistent, sprawling system of public support. At the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, according to the official Olympic medal table, Germany won 12 gold, 13 silver and eight bronze medals, or 33 medals in total, placing it tenth in the ranking. That result is not in itself the only reason for the law, but it has become a political symbol of a broader debate on whether the existing model produces sufficiently clear effects in relation to the public money invested in sport.
The agency as the central decision-making point
According to the draft law that the Bundesregierung submitted to the Bundestag, the central element of the reform is the establishment of the Spitzensport-Agentur as a foundation under public law. The agency is intended to become the central institution for analysis, management and distribution of funds in key areas of elite sport. The government argues that such a model should enable decisions "from a single source", with less administrative overlap and clearer criteria for supporting federations, male athletes, female athletes and the training system. The legal text emphasizes that support should be based on potential and results, while respecting the autonomy of sport.
According to the government’s plan, the agency would have its own professional sporting expertise and would gradually take over parts of the existing funding procedures. The Bundesregierung states that, in the first step, Olympic funding for sports federations should be transferred to the agency, while later it could also be extended to the Paralympic and non-Olympic areas. Government documents particularly emphasize the possibility of multi-year and interdisciplinary funding, which should mean greater predictability for federations and athletes than under previous budget cycles. For the first time in this manner, the agency could directly support particularly successful and promising athletes.
The draft also envisages a governance structure that has already sparked political disputes. According to a report by the newspaper Das Parlament, key decisions in the agency would be made by a two-member executive board, while a nine-member board of trustees would elect the members of that board. The board of trustees should include two members of the Bundestag, three representatives of the federal government, one representative of the federal states and three representatives of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, or DOSB. According to the same report, the board of trustees would not be allowed to decide directly on the individual allocation of funds, while the agency’s third body, the sports expert advisory board, would have an advisory role.
The budget is growing, but governance is the issue
The reform is not taking place in a vacuum, but in a year in which sports items in the federal budget are more politically visible than before. According to information from the Bundestag’s hib service from September 2025, 357.5 million euros were planned for sport in the draft federal budget for 2026. Those funds were shown for the first time in the budget section of the Federal Chancellery, because after the change of government the area of sport was moved from the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of the Interior to the jurisdiction of the Minister of State for Sport and Volunteering at the Chancellery. Staatsministerin Christiane Schenderlein of the CDU described the amount at the time as a record level.
At the same time, the actual public cost of the sports system cannot be reduced to a single budget item. In the debate on the 2026 budget, Das Parlament reported the assessment by SPD member of parliament Bettina Lugk that sport is also financed through other departments and instruments, including sports positions in the Bundeswehr, the federal police, customs, programmes for sports youth and renovation programmes for sports infrastructure. According to that argument, when those elements are added together, federal investment in sport in 2026 exceeds one billion euros. That is precisely why, in the political debate, the emphasis is increasingly shifting from the question "how much money" to the question "how the money is distributed and measured".
The government proposal also provides for additional costs for the new agency itself. According to the draft law, additional expenditure would gradually rise from 2027 to 2031, and after the full takeover of tasks from 2031 would amount to around 8.4 million euros annually. Of that, according to the government’s estimate, around 5.5 million euros would relate to personnel, and the remainder to material costs and investments. At the same time, the draft states that no additional administrative burden is expected for citizens, while the annual administrative cost for the economy associated with information obligations would be reduced by around 1.36 million euros.
Why the reform is considered necessary
Germany already tried to reorganize the elite sport system in 2016, but in the latest draft law the government states that the previous changes did not bring sufficiently deep modernization. The document explicitly mentions the goal of Germany becoming more competitive again at the international level, including ambitions to place among the top five countries at the Summer Olympic Games and among the top three at the Winter Games. According to the government’s explanation, the existing framework does not provide a sufficient basis for future success at the highest level, especially if Germany wants to increase its chances of a successful performance at possible Games on home soil.
The Bundestag’s report from the first debate shows that there is broad agreement on the need for reform, but not on what it should look like. In the debate, Schenderlein assessed that the law was a "turning point" that should return sport in Germany to the international top tier. According to her, the reform should rely on clear responsibilities, smaller and more efficient boards, faster decisions, and funding that is more consistently based on results and sporting expertise. In this way, the government clearly linked the law with the expectation of more medals and better performance at international competitions.
Some members of parliament, however, warn that the problem cannot be reduced solely to institutional form. Bettina Lugk of the SPD assessed in the Bundestag that German elite sport suffers primarily not from a lack of money, but from problems of governance, structure and allocation of funds. As an example, she cited the system of sports centres, which has grown historically, but which in her assessment is too fragmented and partly inefficient. For her, the key goal of the reform is a smarter concentration of funds and better orientation toward the needs of athletes and coaches, not merely an increase in the overall budget.
Dispute over the influence of athletes and politics
The question provoking the most controversy is who will have real influence in the new system. Opposition members of the Bundestag, according to the report by Das Parlament, criticized the fact that the planned board of trustees of the agency has no direct seat for representatives of athletes. Christian Görke of the Die Linke party assessed that this must change, while at the same time also calling for representation of the German Disabled Sports Association. Tina Winklmann of the Greens emphasized that the reform cannot be credible if those whose careers are most directly affected do not have a stronger voice in the bodies shaping the system.
In their proposal in the Bundestag, the Greens called for more transparent funding, publicly available data on criteria and decisions, regular evaluation and a stronger role for athlete representatives. Their document warns that federal funds for elite sport rose significantly from 2010 to 2023, but that the number of medals and final placements did not increase in proportion to that growth. From that perspective, the key weakness is not only the amount of support, but also the insufficiently clear connection between investment, goals and responsibility. The Greens therefore demand that funding also be linked to integrity, equality, diversity, sustainability and protection against doping and manipulation.
On the other hand, some criticism concerns the danger that the new agency could be formally independent, but politically too closely supervised. Das Parlament reported that Stephan Mayer of the CSU believes the federal government is overrepresented on the board of trustees and that one of its mandates should be handed over to the DOSB. Christian Görke of the Left went further and assessed that without major changes the law would not bring a real turnaround. Such remarks show that three sensitive issues are likely to arise in the committee debate: the share of politics, the share of organized sport and the formal role of athletes.
The Olympic bid increases the pressure
The reform is taking place in parallel with German plans for a possible bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044. According to the DOSB, Germany currently does not have to choose the exact year, but is developing concepts and assessing domestic candidates through the process with the International Olympic Committee. The DOSB stated that the concepts of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and the Köln-Rhein-Ruhr region are in the process, and that the decision on the final German concept should be made by autumn 2026. On 3 June 2026, that process changed further after voters in Hamburg rejected the continuation of the city’s bid in a referendum on 31 May, according to data from the electoral authority and German media.
For the Bundesregierung, sports reform is important also because of a possible domestic bid. The draft law states that a more efficient, less bureaucratized and more competitive support system should also be built with regard to the DOSB’s Olympic ambition, which the federal government supports. The logic is politically clear: if Germany wants to make a convincing case to host the Games, it must show that its elite sport has a system capable of producing international results, protecting athletes and explaining to the public why large amounts of money are being invested in that system. For that reason, the debate on the agency is not only an administrative reform, but also part of a broader strategy for the country’s sporting image.
But the Olympic ambition simultaneously raises the standards for public oversight. A bid for the Games usually involves major investments in infrastructure, security, transport, promotion and organization. If a new model for funding elite sport is being introduced at the same time, citizens and parliament have an additional reason to demand clear data on who decides, according to which criteria and with what results. That is precisely why the issue of transparency, which at first glance may seem technical, has become one of the central political issues in the German debate.
What follows in the Bundestag
After the first debate, the government draft and opposition proposals continue their path through the parliamentary committees. According to the Bundestag, the lead committee for the further procedure will be the Committee on Sport and Volunteering. In that procedure, amendments can be expected on the composition of the governing bodies, the agency’s powers, the role of athletes, the publication of criteria and the method of supervising results. Since the law also raises the issue of multi-year funding, the debate will inevitably touch on budget rules and the relationship between the federal government, the Bundestag, the federal states and organized sport.
If the law is adopted in a form close to the government proposal, Germany will gain a new central institution for elite sport, with the ambition of reducing fragmentation and directing support toward disciplines, federations and athletes with the greatest potential. The success of the reform, however, will not be measured only by the establishment of the agency. It will be measured by whether decisions are truly faster, more understandable and more resistant to particular interests, whether athletes have a clearer position, and whether greater investment results in better conditions and more sustainable sporting results. Germany is therefore debating not only a new law, but what kind of elite sport it wants to finance with public money.
Sources:
- Deutscher Bundestag – report on the first debate on the Sportfördergesetz and referral of the draft to committees (link)
- Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 21/5921 – government draft of the Sportfördergesetz and explanation of the reform (link)
- Bundesregierung – announcement on the cabinet’s adoption of the draft law and the role of the Spitzensport-Agentur (link)
- Das Parlament – analysis of the parliamentary debate, the composition of the agency and disputes over athlete representation (link)
- Deutscher Bundestag / hib – data on the planned sports budget for 2026 (link)
- Das Parlament – debate on the overall scale of sports investment in the 2026 federal budget (link)
- DOSB – information on the German process for a possible bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044 (link)
- Olympics.com – official medal table of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024 (link)
- Statistikamt Nord – data on the referendum in Hamburg on the 2026 Olympic bid (link)