Ways of reforming state policy in the sphere of physical culture and sports were discussed during the hearings in the Committee on Family Matters, Youth Policy, Sports and Tourism
15 October 2014, 13:14
Opening the hearings, Committee Chair Artur Palatnyi noted that “all of those present are aware of the complicated situation our country has turned out to be in. All the resources today are marshaled to support our army that counteracts the external aggressor. Under these conditions, financing of all branches, including, the sports one, has been cut. That is why Committee members believe that we should primarily talk about the survival of the sector of physical culture and sports, and only than build the plans of drastic reforms.”
A.Palatnyi stressed also that in the course of reforming “we should
preserve all sports personnel and infrastructure.”According to him, “the proposal of certain reformers to reduce a significant part of children's and youth sports schools and establish private clubs on their basis, is inadmissible.” “Surely, funding of sports associations and schools could be transferred to local budgets, however, local budgets won’t be able to maintain it,” said the people’s deputy. According to him, even such big cities and Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk claim that they have no possibility to additionally finance the sports sector.
“It is not a secret that primarily children from large and needy families study at children's and youth sports schools. Unfortunately, the number of such children has significantly increased due to great losses that that our country has suffered during the confrontation with the Russian aggressor and their mercenaries,” stressed A.Palatnyi.
Also he has attached attention to the need of changing priorities of work of our children's and youth sports schools. “As the experience of reforming European football testifies, a child should be able to freely develop in sports. There can’t be unperceptive children in sports,” noted the speaker.
A.Palatnyi has also informed that “when the Committee addressed the Prime Minister of Ukraine asking to assign and approve the State target social programme for developing physical culture and sports in 2015-2019, the Ministry of Youth and Sports responded that the issue of elaborating the programme will be considered after reforming the sector of physical culture and sports.”
Participants of the hearings stood for elaborating several recommendations for the bodies of executive power, i.e. the Cabinet of Ministers, the Government and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine.