Playing sports enables people to have a better quality of life, and thus greater social well-being. The reality is that sports activity has been defined throughout the centuries not only as mere recreation and secondary entertainment, but rather as an expression of human development.

For this reason, sport forces nations to consider it as state policy. In Ecuador, there is currently a belief that a better structure is needed to manage sport from the public sphere. But for lack of will or political convenience, they look the other way.

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There is concern that the policy used to aid and develop sport sends contradictory messages to those proclaimed in the constitutional text and in the laws that protect it. In 2009, President Rafael Correa told his members of the assembly that it was time to adopt a new Law on Sports, Physical Education and Recreation, which would transform national sports into a supposed legal paradigm that even the most developed countries would copy.

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But the spirit of that law actually provided for chapters that were clearly designed by nationalist centralist experts. It served as an instrument for the takeover of the organizations that govern Ecuadorian sports. To this end, they were given free rein to create phantom, paper sports organizations to conquer all dignities and violate autonomy.

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It was an entire architecture designed so that the Minister of Sports has permission to intervene as many times as he wants in different parts of the national sports system. It became, as some opponents defined it, an “illegal monument”, a useful political instrument for satisfying absolutist ambitions in the style that various sports institutions had to be managed. It has been proven that this state interference was traumatic.

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It is essential that sports leaders react and design a perfectly defined and conjunctural framework of relations in which the national sports policy ensures the autonomy of organizations and free association. Not excluding, of course, the indispensable subsidiary process of the state and the arguments of sports decentralization.

But the crisis continued for years and it is worth updating some questions. Is there strategic planning in Ecuador? Are budget funds provided for the implementation of the right state sports policy? Have they reformed the nationalization laws? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no. The escalation of drug use among Ecuadorian youth is a high-voltage problem and the various proposed alternatives are not very pragmatic. Meanwhile, it is worrying that the growth of this scourge that is eating away at the present and future of our youth is unchecked.

When Otto Sonnenholzner was the vice-president of the Republic, he presented a program for the protection of children and young people, which was based on prevention, in order to attack drug consumption through sports. As time went by, and I don’t know why, that initiative fizzled out. A few days ago, the mayor of Guayaquil, Aquiles Alvarez, held a session of the Cantonal Council in the popular sector of Monte Sinaí and in his speech mentioned: “Sports are the vaccine that young people need to get out of the world of drugs.” . And he explained that his desire is to build sports fields.

I assume that they must be carried out with sports instructors and experts in the field of motivational psychology and the agreement of specialized foundations to follow a structured plan and make the ultimate goal a reality. If it rains like this, it won’t be clear, Mr. Mayor.

Another crisis in the political-sport relationship that many developing countries face is undoubtedly the lack of attention that student and university sports receive. There are only statements, but there is irresponsible abandonment in that sector. Educational and sports authorities must understand that this is precisely where the germ of the sports development of children and young people lies. This is where the future begins. It is the right place to grasp the concept of what serious state policy is in the service of sport.

When Sebastián Palacios was appointed Minister of Sports at the beginning of the current government, he declared that he knew perfectly well that the public organization had been managed, for more than a decade, by inefficient officials, people who wandered through a structure designed on ideologies. oppressive, retrograde, far from new visions of understanding sports.

As expected, no corrections were made. The critical chapters are still valid.

In the last period of the National Assembly, we learned that the representative Marcos Molina Jurado proposed a new draft of the Organic Law on sports, physical education and recreation. This has led us to believe that this new law will not only alleviate the identified evils, but will also include the restructuring of sports organizations with fair requirements for their establishment and the eligibility of their leaders. This project was perceived as depoliticized.

Unfortunately, what happened with the contaminated National Assembly happened. There was never any sensitivity to problem solving. All that remains for history is that the current government declared sport a state policy by decree, without a budget and without laws. It ended up being a simple statement without pragmatism.

A few days ago, the country again witnessed two debates with presidential candidates, and none of them, in terms of social issues, dealt with sports, consumption prevention or sports development. There was also no mention of how to stop the progression of youth crime.

Do you know if any candidate in the second round included a chapter in his government program that privileges sport, because of its importance for the development of society?

Alberto Palomar explained well that “the commitment of governments to sport is not applause, receptions and supporting testimonials; “The obligation consists of ensuring that the objectives are sufficiently reflected in the framework of public and social priorities.” That is why it is necessary that cosmetic problems give way to rigor. I ask the two presidential candidates: if sport is so important and if they accept that it is a proven expression in human development, why didn’t they take the time to support it? The answer is obvious. Sport, unfortunately, is not a priority of public policy.

With all this background, it can be confirmed that regarding Ecuadorian sports, in the recesses of human memory, the concept has been established that the sports structure has usually suffered an unforgivable and wrongful abandonment by the political sector. (OR)