DENVER — A proposed rewrite of the law governing the Olympic Games in the United States calls for government funding for the embattled U.S. Center for SafeSport while creating a new government office to oversee grassroots sports long tied to the Olympic Games themselves .
The Associated Press has obtained a copy of the legislation, which is proposed to rework the 1978 law that put the current Olympic structure in place. The word “amateur” would be removed from the bill’s title and would also be removed from the entire legislation, in a nod to the reality that professional athletes have been an integral part of today’s Olympic Games for at least four decades.
Another major change would be the separation of the Athletes Advisory Commission from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. This arrangement is intended to eliminate conflicts of interest inherent in placing an athlete’s group under the same umbrella as the organization with which it sometimes comes into conflict.
The rewrite of the law, which would be called the “Ted Stevens Olympic, Paralympic, and Grassroots Sports Act,” is being proposed by the Commission on the State of the US Olympics and Paralympics, a panel created by Congress in 2020 in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal.
A Senate subcommittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday titled “Promoting a Safe Environment in American Athletics.” SafeSport CEO Ju’Riese Colon and committee co-chair Dionne Koller will testify, among others.
The commission last month released a 277-page report filled with findings and suggestions for change. The most targeted criticism has been aimed at the SafeSport centre, which was established in 2017 to monitor sexual abuse cases in Olympic sports.
“As we conducted our investigation, it became clearer with each new piece of evidence that SafeSport has lost the trust of many athletes,” the committee wrote in the report.
That led to a discussion about SafeSport’s financing model; it receives $20 million a year from the USOPC, which recoups some of that money by charging individual sports organizations a “high-use contribution fee,” which in itself can discourage those entities from bringing business downtown.
While the committee acknowledged serious questions about the center’s overall operation, it also agreed with Colon’s long-standing claim that the center is underfunded. The rewrite of the law calls for returning the $20 million to the USOPC so it can fund, for example, the new independent athletes’ commission, while placing the center on an annual public funding model somewhat similar to that of the US. Anti-Doping Agency.
Unlike most other countries, the U.S. government does not provide funding for its Olympic teams. The rewritten bill wouldn’t change the core of that philosophy, but it does seek government funding — for the SafeSport Center and for a new Office of Grassroots Sports and Fitness within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Getting politicians to fund a new bureaucracy, even under the guise of growing grassroots sports, is proving to be one of the most difficult things in the proposed legislation. In its report, the committee suggested taxes on legal sports betting, a voluntary donation box on IRS forms or new lotteries as possible ways to fund such an entity.
The committee also proposed that the new agency create an inspector general to oversee the entire Olympic movement. It’s a move that could address what the commission saw as a general lack of oversight and poor reporting guidelines — on everything from abuse to financial reports — across the landscape.
“One of the key findings of this investigation is a lack of transparency, accountability and due process by USOPC, governing bodies and SafeSport,” the report said. “This is harmful to both the movement and the millions of Americans who participate in it.”
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Summer Olympics AP: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
