The Brazilian Golf Confederation is a signer of the sport manifest in Brazil. It includes the following items:

Taking sports resources is to take money on education, health, and public safety

The sports sector, represented by athletes, sports organizations, and civil society organizations, has come out publicly in defense of Brazilian sport. Sport is not only understood as practiced by professional athletes who inspire and excite us in the courts, stadiums, swimming pools, mats, etc. But also the one that contributes to human development and values. Such as discipline, group work, determination, concentration, resilience, the one that forms citizens. Which is a factor of human and social development and guaranteed as a social right in the Federal Constitution (art 217).

Published on Monday by the Presidency of the Republic, Provisional Measure No. 841 of 2018. It provides for the National Public Security Fund (FNSP), withdraws resources from Health, Education, Culture, and Sports by redirecting them to public safety.

Security is paramount in an unprecedented crisis

We believe that security is paramount in an unprecedented crisis. However, we emphasize that reducing crime and violence is due to improving education, reducing inequality and creating jobs in other policies. The sport can contribute to a large extent to this. This measure, as well as the progressive reduction of the budget and the annual provisions of the Ministry of Sport, endanger the viability of the sports sector in the country. This has serious consequences for education, health, public safety, social development and opportunities for millions of children and adolescents.

In addition to the various studies, reports from civil society organizations working with sport, the recent UN Development Report and the World Health Organization (WHO) studies. Therefore they indicate that there is sufficient empirical and scientific evidence to state that regular participation in activity physics and sport generate a wide range of social, mental and health benefits. These include reducing weight and obesity, reducing the use of legal and illegal drugs, reducing violence in communities and improving people’s productive capacity. In addition to the well-being of citizens, sport as an integrated policy reduces health spending, reduces crime, improves education and productivity of people.

Not agree with the practice of the current government

We do not agree with the practice of the current government, which imposes on us what rights we can enjoy. It is the duty of the government to guarantee all the rights of its citizens. We believe that security is an area of paramount importance and that government resources are finite, but penalizing too much of a social area that already has a low budget, with the withdrawal of resources over 500 million, should not be a viable solution for a government which values the guarantee of rights and human development of its citizens. It is up to society to ask when palliative actions will be proposed and cuts in social areas, which even contribute to the prevention of violence, without any planning or evaluation of their impact.

Provisional Measure condemns the sport

The Provisional Measure condemns the sport in the country with the withdrawal of the transfer of the sports secretaries of the states and municipalities for the promotion of educational sport, with the end of the funds allocated to the Brazilian Club Committee, responsible for the promotion of grassroots sports, funds for entities that promote school and university sports, reduction of transfers to the Olympic and Paralympic Committees, and especially the cut of more than 200 million resources that would go to the Ministry of Sports, responsible for the national sports policy that includes social programs that democratize access to the practice of educational sport, promoting the integral development of young people as a factor of formation of citizenship and improvement of the quality of life. This represents the scrapping of the organ, which will not be able to maintain its activities.

Prognostic contests have been a regular source of resources for sport in Brazil since 2001 (Law 10.264 / 2001), as are several other countries in the world. They are fundamental not only for the development of the sport of income as for the school sport and the budget of the Ministry of Sports. The latter, in 2018, was the lowest of the last 14 years. That is, contrary to some government statements, there are not enough resources due to investments in major sporting events in Brazil, on the contrary, the Ministry of Sports still has a legacy of sports infrastructure to manage.

Sport is proven as an unequaled factor of human and social development

The sport is proven to be an unequaled factor of human and social development and can do much for Brazil, it is time for the Government to invest in policies that will transform lives and communities.

We ask the parliamentarians of the Brazilian Congress

That is why we ask the parliamentarians of the Brazilian Congress not to approve the aforementioned Provisional Measure in these terms, which will profoundly affect the health, education, culture and especially sports, and consequently future generations of citizens. We ask the Congress to study possibilities for replacing the sources of the National Public Security Fund.

  • the democratization of Sport, through its access to the entire population.
  • quality sport in schools, as an educational tool.
  • improve the National Sports System with greater efficiency and transparency.

Above all, we want a government that values what Sport can do for Brazil.

Original in Portuguese from the CBG-news / 13.06.2018