Prime Minister Edi Rama today attended an extended meeting with the Albanian Olympic Committee officials, mayors and education officials to discuss a new national school and university sports programme.

Putting emphasis on the importance of a completely new approach to sports as part of the school and university curricula, the government head called for commitment of the participating institutions to deliver on a radical transformation through the proposed programme in terms of building a completely new cultural and social space for thousands upon thousands of children and young people.

* * *

Hello everyone!

It is somehow a special meeting in terms of its format, but it is necessary to address the need for a full commitment of all of you here and of course of all participants in the panel to launch the sports programme successfully by together joining the efforts to take to a whole new level what we started with the reinstatement of physical education classes to school curriculum, after a period when physical education was totally eliminated as a school subject, an absurdity never encountered elsewhere around the world, but that was the reality where we found sport in school and that we must now take it further, with a very professional  and very efficient arrangement, much more massive and with much more impact on community life.

There are two programmes containing three components.

The National School Sports Programme and the National School Arts and Crafts Programme, which will include IT education too, are designed to tackle a serious social and family problem regarding the after school time. The afterschool time is a huge void, especially in the cities’ suburbs and in smaller municipalities in particular, where no activities and events are held for the young people so that an education space is offered to them during this afterschool time, a space that helps in their education and development, helps to train their senses,  helps growth and development of their talents, either through sports or through creative activity, either through crafts, which are an exceptional missing component too at a time when, as we all are witnessing in our own homes and as every teacher are seeing in their schools, the schoolchildren mainly focus on electronics and on other missing but crucial and irreplaceable subjects in the man’s life no matter how far the technology will go.

The sports programme will certainly help us to embark on an important shift of activity, from an activity taking place in various cities and is completely informal, with totally informal sports clubs and movements, for which parents spend extremely much money, in an organized, formalized space, which also produces social activity. 

The aim is to build sports teams in every 9-year school, high school and university and to create sports competitions at a district and national level.

All this would be impossible if the education directorates and regional offices, on the one hand, and the local government authorities on the other do not commit themselves to doing their share and it is unimaginable  that after a period of more than a month, local government authorities in most of the municipalities across the country fail to respond to some very basic requests made by the Minister of State for Youth and Children and then by the Olympic Committee to be informed about the terrains they can make available.

It is not difficult for us to compile an inventory list of the school gyms as it is actually part of the inventory of the education directorates and offices across the country, but I mean outdoor sports grounds available to them in every municipality, and not only the school gyms. We are talking about terrains that could be potentially transformed into sports grounds, so that acting on the basis of such an overall inventory list we can determine the due funding and boost capacities in collaboration with the local government authorities.

Today, like never before, our school gyms across Albania meet optimum standards. When I, Fidel and somebody else here were engaged in semi-professional sport activities back then, the gyms available to us here in Tirana could be count on the fingers of one hand and the first category sports teams had to train at the Student City’s gym, which failed to meet any of the then standards. The school gyms today are incomparable with the Student club’s gym, a first-category club back then, in terms of the optimum standards and size, let alone the locking rooms and so on and so forth, and in terms of this infrastructure that we should definitely further upgrade and expand throughout the country as such infrastructure is not actually available everywhere precisely to such sports events and tournaments among schools and at municipal, regional and national level. However, we should also expand the area of the outdoor sports grounds, the community sports grounds in every neighbourhood and every administrative unit in the rural areas. But how are we supposed to do that when we are not succeeding in taking over the available land areas at every municipality? It could have sounded a sort of a bureaucratic practice and it seems you have failed to realize the significance of this programme, given that Tirana Municipality has also failed to provide information on such terrains. However, I believe this meeting provides us with an idea and a clear ambition for this programme, which is an extremely important one.

It is extremely important for the health of children and young people, for the social culture of children and young people, for the education of children and young people, it is extremely important against those shadows that haunt schools and threaten the life and health of their future through the supply of bad habits and so on. The benefits of sports are innumerable and the benefits of this program as well, but it depends on us how quality, how attractive, how impactful, spread throughout the territory, this program will be. 

One thing is for sure, as Bora also noted. Together with Bora I have attended some of the meetings with high school students. At every meeting across the country, all student communities have called for assistance and support from the local government structures and by the central government to launch sports activities.

It is up to us to provide this country’s boys and girls with the opportunity to engage in sports activities. The government has earmarked significant funding to support this programme and, as Fidel, the Head of the Albanian Olympic Committee, said we want the sports activities to be well-organized and arranged events.

We should work to build a network of sports teams, a network of coaches and a network of health care providers. We should also set up a network of individuals and officials in local government and education directorates who will work on this programme. Government structures should also be available and work on this programme and deliver on creation of a new social and cultural space for hundreds of thousands of families and young people across the country.

It is actually a very noble goal, a very noble objective and I would beg everyone to become available and work on this programme, which doesn’t take a lot of exceptional efforts. Quite the contrary, this is the opportunity for every municipality to gain support from the government and expand their sports grounds, both indoor and outdoor sports grounds.

In the meantime, I would suggest every mayor to think about projecting a sports centre in their territory, which means an additional centre, sports fields, gyms and other sports grounds. An Olympic center like the one already built in Korça, with every municipality building such facilities according to certain characteristics that can give the center, to provide space for training and for different teams that can come to your cities, but above all, for to have a center where these culminating moments of sports activity can be materialized and where, of course, the sports teams of the municipality can be trained. 

This means we should start with this vision and gradually with the projects and the required funds. I am not saying that we will immediately do all the municipalities with Olympic centers step by step. We definitely need to build an Olympic center in Tirana, which can give the opportunity to all federations and all activities outside of football, so that it can be included and we need, my friends, a review by you, as a municipality, of access to sports funds. 

Some steps have been made, somehow mandatory ones, but municipal authorities keep wasting money for football. Municipalities spend the taxpayers’ money to fund private football teams for no reason whatsoever. No municipality around the world would ever do that. 

Another approach should be built through the taxpayers’ money, as we have repeatedly stated. You are entitled and legally obliged to fund sports for everyone, not the professional sport, but sports for children and young people at schools, sports in community instead of funding and sponsoring private football teams, with you just throwing and wasting the taxpayers’ money with nothing in exchange, except the disgrace and shameful actions and incidents that go viral throughout the world.

It is impossible to promote hooliganism through use of the taxpayers’ money. This is impossible.

Of course, municipal authorities can establish cooperation relationships with football clubs if their investment is repaid. What does this mean? It is impossible to sponsor some sports clubs that attract a number of hooligans and nothing else. Why should the municipalities do that? 

The current situation is regrettable. But if the municipalities want to really invest and become part of the football and sports growth in general they should do so seriously. Local authorities should make their assets available and turn them into profitable assets for their local budget through which they can fund activities involving schoolchildren, students and young people instead of providing money and allowing private football clubs to commit fiscal evasion. It is useless and completely incomprehensible to sponsor such clubs and useless championship tournaments.

Of course, local government structures can certainly establish partnership relations with private clubs. Citizens owe not a single cent to the football clubs. No taxpayers owe them anything. There is no reason in the world for the local government authorities to support these football clubs.

So, it is our only obligation to ensure sport for children and students. When it comes to professional sport other structures are responsible for this part of sports, and of course, it’s up to the government to support, as it has always done and will continue to do so. Yet this is not an obligation for the municipal authorities.

Why should the municipalities sacrifice their football budgets, without gaining anything at all? 

And to conclude again with a positive note, I want to assure you that the government will attach a lot of importance to this programme in cooperation with you and of course we will be ready to respond, of course within the possibilities, but for every step that you will throw in our direction for the program.

And of course every municipality that will lag behind will be judged by the parents, it will be judged by the community because you will see for yourself that what we are doing will be 1000 times more preferred than the useless football matches.

Thank you!

Since there are so many people who have taken the trouble to attend this meeting, whatever it may be to clarify or any details you want to know or anything you want to share, whatever it is, any questions how it will work, you are welcome.