The European Commission and the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) organized an Information Day on the 05th of February 2019 in Brussels to inform potential candidates about the possibilities of Erasmus + Sport, EU funding mechanisms and EU sports policy.

The event was opened by European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Tibor Navracsics, who outlined the Europe’s 2019 sports policy, which will also be a priority in the projects to be funded by the Commission. 

Experts who presented different presentations discussed policy with the participants, gave advice on preparing and submitting proposals, and explained in details the financial aspects of the program. The participants had the opportunity to meet current and future partners as well as to see examples of successful projects.

The Erasmus + Sport program has a budget of € 46.5 million for 2019 and aims at increasing the physical activity in Europe, enforce the European Week of Sport campaign, apply the principles of good governance in the field of sport, develop the dual career of athletes, to take concrete steps in the fight against doping, to create opportunities for sustainable partnerships in the sphere of sport. In the full duration of the program, it administers a budget of € 265 million for the period 2014 – 2010, with € 124.5 million (including 2017) spent so far.

On February 6, 2019, again in the Belgian capital, the first meeting of the “Back2Track” project took place, during which the partners agreed on a work plan of the activities and planned in detail each of the events envisaged in the project. Back2Track will focus on analyzing the differences and similarities that sport clubs have in the approach to professional and grassroots sport and in innovative approach of including kids with disadvantage background in sport and physical activity. As most sport clubs in Europe are implementing both programmes for high level sport and grassroots sport and most of the administration in this club has professional education and experience in the field of professional sport, it is needed to be created new approach for the sport club, focused on grassroots sport. In the same time, there are a huge number of kids with disadvantage background that needs to be empowered to involve in positive activities such as sport and to give them different perspective on their future personal and professional development as society members.

The project is aiming to find the way of bringing practical skills and knowledge in the participating organizations on how to manage a grassroots sport programme together with the elite sport programmes. Main added value of the project: straightened cooperation between the participating organizations and their empowered staff; exchange of good practices in the field of EU sport policy; new tools for sport clubs across EU in the field of setting grassroots sport programme in professional sport club; promotion of athletics as basic sport. Project outputs will be available for sport organizations at local, national and European level, as well to the educational institutions, local authorities, NGO’s, national authorities in their daily work. In the same time, by empowering the participating organizations we will give them unique opportunity to experience working with kids with disadvantage background that will lead them through the process of learning on practice how to recruit youngsters for grassroots sports.

The current partnership will implement various activities on local and international level; will focus in development, identification, analyzing, promotion and sharing good practices in attracting kids to sport (in particular athletics) and creating clear separation in the activities in the sport club regarding professional and grassroots sport. Back2Track will add to the existing knowledge, know-how and practices to the organizations and persons involved in project activities and outputs.

Project consortium:

Coordinator: Bulgaria: Bulgarian sports development association – BSDA (bulsport.bg)

Partner 1: Croatia, RIJEKA SPORT’S ASSOCIATION – RSS (www.rss.hr)

Partner 2: Belgium, The Charity Game (TCG asbl) (www.thecharitygame.be)

Partner 3: Bulgaria, KLASA (https://www.nsa.bg/en/page,812)

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