Money is the panacea for sports complaints

Money is the panacea for sports complaints

JAKARTA (JP): Money, it seems, is now believed by the
Indonesian sports authorities to be the elixir and tonic for the
many ailments befalling the country's sports.

This has been made much of in particular since the unexpected,
painful loss of Indonesia's long-standing Southeast Asian Games
dominance to Thailand at the 18th SEA Games in Chiang Mai,
Thailand, last month.

Setia Novanto, treasurer of the National Sports Council
(KONI), reiterated what Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports
Hayono Isman had said that it was money which played a pivotal
role in Thailand's SEA Games success.

"Thailand spent around Rp 1.2 to 1.8 trillion to train their
athletes for the Games, while we spent just Rp 13 billion,"
Novanto told The Jakarta Post during a break of KONI's plenary
congress which ended on Tuesday.

Hayono on Monday said that Indonesia's flop in Chiang Mai was
"understandable given the different amounts of money the two
countries had spent in preparing their athletes."

A total of 121 representatives of all provincial sports
bodies, sports and sports-related organizations under KONI
supervision attended the annual congress.

In its fund-raising proposal, the congress among other things
agreed that levying more tax on cigarettes would be appropriate
as a means to increase sports funding and at the same time
discourage smokers.

Novanto said that for the 19th SEA Games, to which Jakarta
will play host next year, KONI will still have to rely on its
special staff for funds. The staff, placed directly under KONI
chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar, consists of the country's most
prominent tycoons.

The other financial sources will include Jaspora, a new sports
fund-raising concept introduced by Hayono recently. Under the
scheme, the government will take three to five percent of money
spent on the country's advertising expenditure to cover most of
KONI's money-hungry programs.

"We need a body to implement Jaspora. Discussions on setting
up the body are still going on," Novanto said. Yet, even if
Jaspora goes into action, Novanto added, "KONI will be still in
need of financial aid from its special staff because this would
be good for their image and help activate the country's economy."

From its special staff, KONI acquired Rp 13 billion to finance
the preparations for the 18th SEA Games two months before the
Games began on Dec. 9. Soon after the Games were over on Dec. 17,
KONI turned to its special staff again, asking them to pay for
the bonuses KONI had promised to its athletes who won medals at
the Games.

Novanto added that the bonuses in question, in the form of
insurance policy, will be formally given on Feb. 1.

In the future, each member of the staff will be appointed as
financier for a certain sport. Thus, they will be responsible
for providing bonuses to medal-winning athletes of the respective
sport under their care, Novanto said.

Many worry that if KONI maintains the habit of exploiting its
special staff, the staff will soon suffer from donation fatigue.

Novanto said that Jaspora and the other forms of partnership
with the business community will hopefully relieve the special
staff's burden. Moreover there are strong indications that the
government may be ready to turn its current priority of
alleviating poverty into a priority for sports development in ten
years' time, as Hayono earlier also said. "This will certainly
help reduce our dependence on donors," Novanto said.

Despite the need for more and more money, however, Novanto
said that accurate accounts are needed to tell how much money is
really needed by each sports organization or each provincial
chapter under KONI for the training programs of their athletes.
"Thus, the amounts needed for so-and-so sports projects are still
based on rough estimates, for example, the Rp 50 billion a year
which the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports estimates for
training the national athletes." (arf)