After several months of blockages and closures, establishments and sports facilities can finally reopen. The only constraint is the presentation of the health pass. And this is not without problems. While we were all expecting a boosted recovery, it unfortunately remains too weak.
In the first half of last year, the Minister for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, announced the implementation of the sports pass, an aid of €50 per child registered in a sports club. The objective was to revitalize and relaunch sports practice, which had dropped significantly, after the various successive confinements.
Everyone was waiting, hoping that, from the month of September, when families would receive this subsidy, clubs and infrastructures would be overwhelmed, would see hundreds of thousands of candidates arriving, eager to discover the joys of athletics , judo or football, after having dreamed all summer in front of the Euro or the Olympic Games.
However, that’s not really what happened. According to data compiled by Cosmos, the employers’ organization for French sport, 34.5% of sports facilities in France have seen a 20% drop in attendance compared to last season. Questioned by France Info, a member of the CNOSF, the National Olympic Committee for French Sport, considers the start of the school year “sluggish” and “gloomy”. In terms of registrations and the purchase of licenses, Brigitte Henriques, the new president of the CNOSF, quantifies the decreases at 20% but qualifies the results by citing federations which are experiencing a rebound, such as volleyball, with an increase of 25% between 2020 and 2021. The fine performances of Laurent Tillie’s team at the Olympic Games may have something to do with it.
Unfortunately, the start of the school year seems gloomy. A feeling of fear, of defeatism, of weariness seems to take hold. The French are no longer there. According to the Cosmos, still in its back-to-school survey, nearly half of the clubs and sports companies questioned believe that the drop in attendance, despite the sports pass and the end of confinement, is due to the implementation of the health pass. and its obligation to present itself at the entrance to the speakers.
Although the country has achieved record vaccination coverage of more than 80%, placing it at the top of the European hierarchy, some leaders still believe that the observed slowdown is due to this health pass, obtained after a vaccine or a negative test in covid less than 72 hours. We are not here to judge or to explain, but we still allow ourselves to doubt it. If the vast majority of French people now hold this pass, it is not normal for attendance at sports halls and clubs to drop. Indeed, there is a minority of French men and women, opposed to the principle of the pass, who affirm, although vaccinated, refuse to present this pass and therefore refrain from practicing a sport in a club, even going to the cinema or to the restaurant.
Beyond these weak cases, it is above all the absence of a policy of real support for the daily practice of sport in France which explains the phenomenon. The government believed that the simple implementation of the sports pass would reboost the practice and that the French would rush into the hall after months of inactivity. But it is precisely because we have known these moments of laziness that we have lost the taste for practice. This has been proven among young people, surveys cited by Virgile Caillet, General Delegate of Union Sport & Cycle, specify “that after months of doing nothing, children have lost the taste for sport and physical exertion” . The goal of the state should be to revitalize this process and relaunch the practice.
The sports pass is a good start but it does not go far enough, it would have been necessary to generalize the sports classes, to make physical and sports activity compulsory at the start of the course, every day, to support the EPS and the STAPS sectors at the university. On the adult side, why not vote for exemptions from charges in exchange for an incentive to practice sport in the workplace, as already exists for sports funding? Why not condition part of the aid paid during the crisis to support and encourage physical and sports activity? Etc. There are many solutions that unfortunately have not all been implemented.
And today, we hide behind the health pass and the voluntary choice of French men and women. But it’s not as simple as that. And we risk suffering the consequences of these non-actions in a few years. Many setbacks can happen, increase in obesity, sedentary lifestyle, cases of depression and ill-being. It has been demonstrated for many years that the practice of sport supports the community, living together and ensures a reduction in public expenditure. It is by investing in sport today that we ensure the future of future generations. It might be time to realize this and act now.
Read More About:What place of sport for the Presidential
Previous ArticleBy 2035, half of the people will be obese – data from World Obesity
