From Inside the Games

A lump participation sum granted to all athletes appearing at the Olympic Games has been proposed as one idea by the head of a panel of German athletes seeking to reform the way revenues are distributed.

Max Hartung, chair of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) Athletes’ Commission, told insidethegames that this would be paid in return for athletes agreeing to sign over their television and picture rights for the duration of the Olympic Games.

Hartung, the reigning European champion in the individual sabre event, was among Commission members to write a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach last week criticising the current revenue distribution model and calling for 25 per cent of IOC profit to go directly to athletes.

“We have some good experience and ideas how athletes funding can be spent in Germany worked out with Stiftung Deutsche Sporthilfe, including scholarships, retirement funds and social security,” Hartung told insidethegames.

“There are a lot of ideas but also including a participant lump sum for signing over your television and picture rights.

“It is important for us that the money reaches the athletes and does not dry up somewhere in big structures.

“There would be 100 per cent transparency and tracking the path of every dollar spent.”

Bach, a former fencer himself who won the foil team title at the Montreal 1976 Olympics, invited Hartung and the other signatories of the letter to Lausanne to “discuss and explain” the current model.

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