It is a shock that risks leaving traces. Inflation, driven in particular by soaring energy prices, is generating additional costs such that the sports policies of local authorities could suffer, warns the Banque Populaire Caisse d’Epargne (BPCE) group in a study on the sector. sport, published Thursday, January 26.
More than a risk “the degradation of public service in sport” already constitutes ” a reality “underline the economists of the mutual banking group, who highlight the closures of swimming pools which several municipalities carried out in 2022.
“This degradation could worsen in a more silent way and settle, in the medium term”, they add, especially since, for local authorities, the new charges caused by inflation come on top of “more structural financial constraints (gradual loss of budgetary autonomy, unpopularity of local tax increases, rise in social and age-related spending)”.
Supplement of 840 million euros for the energy bill
The additional cost caused by inflation on spending on community sport is far from trivial: BPCE experts estimate it at 1.5 billion euros in 2022, or around 12% of this sporting spending.
The energy bill alone represents an additional 840 million euros. Knowing that the evolution of construction costs also weighs on investments (+ 300 million euros), underlines the BPCE study, which also quantifies the impact of the increase in the index point in the civil service ( in July 2022 in response to inflation) on the payroll to + 130 million.
It is above all the municipalities and the intermunicipalities, owners of 77% of the sports infrastructures, which bear the brunt of these additional expenses: 1 billion euros for the first and 400 million for the seconds in 2022, i.e. respectively additional costs of 13 % and 14%. However, the municipal-intermunicipal block is the leading funder of sport, with 8 billion and 3.1 billion euros in expenditure, according to calculations by BPCE.
Renunciation of investments
For BPCE economists, the additional inflationary cost that local authorities have to bear represents “risks for the public service of sport”. It could lead local elected officials to give up “in whole or in part to investment projects in sports equipment”even though the need has never been greater to renovate an aging and energy-intensive park, or to create new equipment.
The authors of the study also anticipate a drop in sports support expenditure by local authorities in response to this additional cost of inflation: “some may be forced to reduce their operating expenses”whether it is access to equipment (closures), grants to associations, or the organization of sporting events.
And for local authorities that will maintain their investment spending despite everything, this will mean “likely an increase in debt”advances the BPCE study, while noting that this additional borrowing risks limiting future investments, “ especially in communities that are already heavily indebted”.
In the end, BPCE economists, while believing that sport “remains a top political priority for local elected officials”consider that the shock caused by inflation, by its magnitude, “should significantly and lastingly affect the quality of the offer dedicated to sport”. Not necessarily good news at a time when the public authorities, thanks to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, have decided to make the development of sports practice a national emergency.