The president of the National Agency for Sports, Bogdan Matei, told AGERPRES in an interview on Friday that a maximum of 12 national sports federations, out of a total of 69, will receive additional funding on the occasion of the upcoming budget rectification that the Government announced will happen in the next two to three weeks.

Matei said that there is no financial crisis facing Romanian sports, even though many federation presidents have stated that the institutions they lead are operating in a state of emergency.

He admitted, however, that there are difficulties in supporting sports clubs and that there are certain delays in terms of awarding the athletes with great international results.

The head of the ANS also stated that his second mandate at the head of the ANS, after leading the Ministry of Youth and Sports in the first, is a much more difficult one.

AGERPRES: Many federations are going through a difficult period financially, and many presidents say they don't even have money for salaries. What is the ANS position in respect to this?

Bogdan Matei: (...) First of all, the National Agency for Sports does not provide money for salaries, does not pay salaries to federations. We only support sports programmes financially. That's a whole different discussion. Each national sports federation had a budget and each one managed this budget as it saw fit. When we have a budget rectification, surely, some of them will also receive additional money.

AGERPRES: Some of the presidents have lost hope that they will receive any more money in the rectification or expressed doubts that this budget rectification will actually take place...

Bogdan Matei: The kayaking-canoeing, athleticism federations will for sure receive something more... There will be a maximum of 12 federations out of 69 that will get more money, which are the Olympic sports federations. (...)

AGERPRES: Considering the current financial problems, would you say that Romanian sports are facing a crisis?

Bogdan Matei: No. There is no such crisis. As I have already told you, each federation had its own budget that it was supposed to manage according to its calendar and to all the sports events they already had planned. Which doesn't mean that Romanian sports have a corresponding budget, not by far. Romanian sports do not have a fit budget. First of all, our budget this year was not higher than the one last year, and maybe it was even smaller. We are trying to manage with what we have. In what the ANS is concerned, we've done everything in our power to maintain things afloat in terms of how we spend the public money, not only at federations level, but also at the level of our sports clubs and national arenas.

AGERPRES: The clubs too are facing problems?
Bogdan Matei: They are facing some financial problems, yes, but we are trying to manage the situation in such a way to meet the budget and spend these money in the best way.

AGERPRES: Looking back, would you say that this second term of yours is harder than the first one?
Bogdan Matei: It's much harder. Much, much harder. First of all, because we took over some international competitions that we needed and need to organize. One of them already took place, and I am referring to the World Swimming Championships (for juniors), a competition that was funded exclusively from the National Agency for Sports' budget, with no additional funds involved. And it was a success. We now have the World Table Tennis Championships that we need to organize in Cluj, and I hope we can make it, because these are two very important competitions for Romanian sports. And then we had the Tour of Romania in cycling, which I think was also a success. We also organized European championships in Romania for basketball, in Pitesti, which was another success.We also organized an international competition in triathlon, and we enjoyed becoming part of it and that we were able to help. In chess we organized several competitions successfully. And of course that there will be many more competitions towards the end of the year. We successfully organized a polo competition in Oradea. And I think that the ANS was an honest partner every time and transparent with the figures, and we always showed our colleagues the reality we were facing and we tried to support them as much as we could.

AGERPRES: As far as I know there is also a problem with awarding the athletes with great international results...
Bogdan Matei: Yes, we are going to deal with this situation too. What I can tell you right now, however, is that as long as I am head of the ANS I will only reward coaches and athletes. I will never reward the technical staff, like it happened in the past. However, we have analysed things and I am certain that we will be able to find the financial resources to reward the athletes who deserve it the most.

Romanian sports are going through a real financial crisis and several federations have had empty accounts for several months, relying on the support of the Romanian Sports Council, private money or even the parents of athletes to send them to international competitions.

According to several sources contacted by AGERPRES, most national sports federations have submitted budget refinancing requests to the National Agency for Sports, and the president of the ANS, Bogdan Matei, confirmed that a maximum of 12 of them will benefit from increases with the budget rectification.

The ANS budget for 2025 is 571,063,000 lei, of which COSR (the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee) has been allocated 66,486,000 lei, and the eligible national federations, on the four components, ''Sports Administration'', ''Sport for All'', ''Material Base Maintenance Administration'' and ''National Sport, Oina'', will share 177,476,000 lei. For the sports activity of the federations, the amount of 141,773,000 lei was distributed. The number of sports federations eligible for financing for 2025 is 69. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Adrian Tone, EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)