Australian Olympics Committee CEO says sports facing a $2bn funding shortfall

The man leading the planning for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games has warned Australia risks failure unless major changes are made.

The man leading planning for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games has warned Australia risks failure without urgent action to address a $2bn funding shortfall and an overhaul of the way sport is managed at a federal level.

Australian Olympic Committee chief executive officer Matt Carroll wants the commonwealth government to create a stand-alone department dedicated to sport, to elevate the Sports Minister to cabinet and to sign off on a new statement of purpose to guide the industry.

In addition, Mr Carroll said the AOC’s analysis showed Olympic, Paralympic, and Commonwealth Games sports would be $2bn short of the direct investment they needed before 2032 unless the government steps in.

Australian Olympic Committee CEO Matt Carroll spoke at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“Without investment, what governments in Australia want sport to achieve for the community is not going to happen,” Mr Carroll told the National Press Club on Monday.

“And in all honesty and openness, unless the situation is rectified, Australia will be staring failure in the face at the 2026 Commonwealth Games and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games because our home teams will have been undermined by inaction.

“Time starts now.”

After calculating the $2bn funding shortfall by combing through member sports’ accounts and their planned programs for their athletes over the next 10 years, the AOC has concluded there’s more money being invested by the sport bodies themselves than there is by the government.

“Successive sports plans over many years have not achieved their ambitions, because they have been funded to fail,” Mr Carroll said.

“On the forward projections based on the work we have done with our 44 member sports, Australian sport will fall over a financial cliff. Sports are fighting each other for a share of a cake that keeps getting smaller.”

Mr Carroll said Olympic sports in Australia are facing a $2bn funding shortfall. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mr Carroll said the Australian Olympic Committee would “never” seek any federal government funding for itself, adding it understood the pressures on the May budget to address the cost of living crisis.

However, he argued sport’s health and economic benefits were already widely known and should be recognised with a higher spot on the government’s list of priorities.

“We do not want to be the portfolio of marginal seats and political photo opportunities. We do not enjoy being the portfolio of coloured spreadsheets or whiteboards mapping electorates,” he said.

“As an industry sector, we are fiscal contributors to the nation’s wellbeing through this critical role sport plays in our collective health.”

Mr Carroll said he’d like a new stand-alone federal sports department to be up and running by the 2024-2025 financial year and co-ordinate the work of government and stand-alone agencies such as the Australian Sports Commission.

“Let’s see if we can get a bit co-ordinated in how we’re investing in these things so we avoid wastage or the claim that we’ve run out of money because we’ve spent it on something else,” he said.