East German sports in chaos
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from December 1989.
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Federation president Klaus Eichler said he and the federation secretariat, or administration, were responding to calls for "far-reaching programs and personnel changes," the official news agency ADN said. Eichler, who had headed the federation since November 1988, admitted that mistakes were made in recent weeks, ADN reported. At an emergency meeting outside Berlin, the federation's assembly overwhelmingly accepted the resignations, the news agency said.
ADN said the assembly planned to name a 40-member working group from among delegates to revive and change the federation.
East Germany for years concentrated on pumping money into certain high-performance sports that yielded a maximum of individual medals in international competition, such as swimming and track and field. In the course of the country's peaceful democratic revolt, former star athletes have come under criticism for enjoying extraordinary privileges. Popular and official pressure has built up for funding more sports facilities for ordinary citizens and promoting sports previously deemed secondary by officials, such as tennis, basketball and ice hockey.
Speculation about corruption in the federation was fueled when Franz Rydz, the vice president for finance, apparently drowned himself after 291,000 West German marks (162,000 dollars) were found in his desk. A statement signed by 192 athletes, including Olympic shot putchampion Ulf Timmermann, called on the sports leadership to resign because it was unable to lead the organization at a time of rapid change in the society.
"There is no crisis on the lower level, but in the apparatus," district delegate Karl-Heinz Schulz was quoted as saying. "Everybody is fighting for their positions here."
The resignations came despite a warning against rash decisions in Junge Welt, the Communist youth newspaper, which headlined a commentary Tuesday, "No place for hysteria."
Junge Welt said Eichler was unanimously confirmed in his post 10 days ago. But a few days later, some of the same delegates reversed themselves and called for his ouster, the paper said. "One has the feeling that also in sports, there is more and more anarchy," it said. "To vote someone out also means knowing there is an alternative, someone better, in the wings." The paper suggested this may not be the case and said East Germany's sports world should take time "to reach clarity."
With their status endangered, top athletes have called for opening the East German sports machine to commercial sponsors.
In a sign of the entire issue's urgency, Premier Hans Modrow met Monday with athletes and officials for discussions marked by "deep concern" over the future of sports in East Germany, ADN reported.
