Efficiency Regarding The Specialists In The National Sports System In Romania

Abstract

Romania outstood throughout time in the Olympic Games with valuable sportsmen, gaining respect and consideration; this way sport has become one of the most efficient ambassadors of our country abroad. Along with the change of the social system, following 1989, sports had also to adapt to the requirements of market economy, change which has materialised, among others, in decreases of value confirmed by great sportive competitions. This research brings into attention an indicator not promoted in specialty culture, that is the report between human resources categories (sportsmen versus specialists), shortened RSS. Without knowing and imposing an optimal value of RSS according to each sport, the research presents the RSS dynamics during the latest Olympic cycles, creating observational correlations between top results and RSS value for each sports federation and Olympic cycle. The accuses brought to the lack of financing in sports must be mitigated as long as the trainers are paid from public money for an activity they perform with too few sportsmen. Acknowledging and imposing an optimal value of RSS for each sports federation may contribute to making more efficient the trainers’ activities, creating new premises for the mass basis of performance sport, highlighting sports that are attractive for children and young people and rendering objective the problems within the sports in crisis.

Keywords: National sports federationshuman resourcessportsmentrainerstop sport results

Introduction

Throughout the last century, Romania outstood globally in a special way by exceptional sport

results and even generated models and legendary names in the collective mentality of the entire world.

The Olympic Games organised in the latest 4 Olympic cycles highlight, nonetheless, a drawback of top

sports results, the number of medals being in a continuous decrease. This process may be considered a

slow one, directly related to the change of social system in Romania in the year 1989. The Romanian

sports system had to adapt to the profound democratic changes, and ‘the greenhouse sport’, which could

be practiced just by some talented, carefully chosen citizens, was replaced by the sport of all citizens (of

young people, adults, seniors, sufferers) but with negative consequences as far as international

acknowledgement is concerned. Despite of these transformations, Romania, a country which holds an

elite sports tradition, with good specialists in the field of performance and great performance sports and

with special human gifts, can and must revive the Olympic top results through a more performant

management.

Olympic top results may be most often generated by a qualitative organisational system, meant to

select, prepare and preserve top sportsmen for a certain period of time; exceptionally, top results can be

obtained by exceptional human elements that may exist and remark themselves even in spite of a poor

organisational system.

The legislative frame in the domain of young people and sport is characterised by numerous

transformations, which diminish the implementation capacity through the lack of exactness in defining

roles and responsibilities; sometimes there even occur superposition of responsibilities and organisational

structures [8, section 7 ]. Centring sports development politics on the citizen is a result of the

decentralisation process, assumed and accepted by all post-1990 governments [8, chapter IV]. Although

sport is an activity of national interest, supported by the state [4], Romania’s official politics admit that

’sports facilities and those generally intended for young people present a real disparity as to the EU

countries, corrective measures being necessary’ [8, p. 2]. At the same time, attracting a bigger and bigger

number of sport practitioners represents a priority of the current governing program in the domain of

young people and sport. Romanian citizens must understand to a wider extent that exercising exerts an

influence which is more important than any other social movement and they must adopt a proactive action

in touch with physical realities [3].

Problem statement

a.Decreasing trend of medals at the Olympic Games during the latest 4 Olympic cycles. At the

Olympic Games in Sidney – 2000, Romania obtained 26 medals but the number decreased

continually up to 4 medals at the Olympic Games in Rio -2016.

b.The big margin of error of the results prognoses expressed by sports federations’ representatives.

Practically, they have predicted minimum 12 and maximum 16 medals at the Olympic Games 2016,

while Romania obtained just 4. (Enciu A., 2014). This fact generates a lack of trust in identifying

the causes and readjusting sports politics.

c.Sports federations which register a smaller and smaller number of legitimations are characterised as

declining (Sotiriu D., Sotiriu R., 2007), and there are required managerial measures of recovery or

limitation.

Purpose of the study

Quantitative analysis of human resources of the national sports federations whose aim is to support

Olympic sports. Practically, the research analyses and compares the report between sportsmen

(participants in official competitions - in special) and the specialists (trainers - in special) in the field,

abbreviated RSS, for each sports federations.

Material and methods

In the research there were used the official data published by national sports federations in the

Sports Yearbooks in 1998, 2003, 2006, 2010, 2014, regarding the number of sportsmen and specialists

added to each sports federation, as well as the type of sports structure in the year 2014 (of public law or

private law). The data were interpreted statistically through simple operations (addition and arithmetic

average grade).

Findings

Data interpretation

In Table 1 outstand the Equestrian and Taekwondo federations presently considered in Romania

without Olympic potential and they are not the object of our research. Football and tennis federations

have developed a very big share of sports structures of private law - 83% and 82% (Table 1 ). The

management of these federations is decentralised and little influenced by national public management,

and this is the reason why, in Tables 3 and 4 , we considered the data of the report between the number of

legitimated sportsmen and the total number of specialists (trainers + instructors) as being representative

for these federations.

In Table 1 there comes out the average of the sports structures of private law, respectively 48%, as

compared to the 25% public structures, at the Olympic sports in Romania, quantity which has a raising

tendency in the near future, as a result of the more and more important role of sports within the society.

The increase of the number of private law structures should be welcomed, since they succeed easier in

diversifying the ways in which they attract financial resources and reduce sports dependence on state

budget contributions (Mihăilescu N., 2008). In developed countries, especially in Europe, performance

sport tends to support itself, while the state, government and politics must only create the proper

conditions for it to function (Badea C., 2016). The increase of the number of private law structures

announces the creation of a solid basis of mass sports practitioners in our country, among whom, by using

correct economic mechanisms (sponsorship, advertisement, marketing, promoting), the most valuable

sportsmen will be selected for performance sports.

The results in Table 2 show a normal distribution of sports human resource in Romania at the

Olympic sports versus non-Olympic sports, based on the following arguments:

• In Olympic sports and branches there are included approximately 4 times more children and young people in comparison with non-Olympic ones;

• While the training in Olympic sports is ensured by trainers, in non-Olympic sports this is especially carried out by instructors;

• In the subsequent analysis of the human resource of the Olympic sports there shall be considered the data with the biggest representation, respectively, the number of participants in the national competition system (89% participants as to 79% legitimated) and the number of trainers (89% trainers in comparison with 31% instructors).

As a general conclusion following the analysis in Table 3 , for the period 1998-2014, considering individual sports there can be generally noticed a decrease of RSS, since the report diminishes in the majority of the situations analysed. The situation of these data is even more critical as it is ascertained that, in general, while the number of participant sportsmen decreased (in spite of the increasing number of competitions following a wider and wider diversification of sports), the number of specialists increased.

At the same time, there must be also noticed the development of private law structures, with a big contribution in the area of primary sports, mass sports or that of the sports for all, practiced within sports federations that manage Olympic sports. These aspects must be further welcomed and encouraged as they contribute to carrying out the performance pyramid recognised by sports systems in the entire world.

The most critical situation appears in the case of gymnastics, with a decrease of almost 4 times of the RSS in the latest 4 Olympic cycles. Without pretending to appreciate the optimal number of

sportsmen that a gymnastics trainer should justify, we state that the value ’3’is ridiculously small in the

present context, in comparison with the activity of other trainers in other sports, but also in comparison

with the efficiency of the same trainers’ activity in the years in which Romanian gymnastics represented a

world brand. Shooting federation also registers very low values of RSS. Unexplainably fluctuant values

of RSS can be noticed in the case of athletism federation.

A relative constancy of RSS can be noticed in the case of judo, kayak-canoe and table tennis

federations. At present, positive trends can be noticed in the case of athletism – after a long period of

drawback – and fencing federations. The gold medal at fencing at the Olympic Games in Rio 2016 can be

also explained by the continuous quantitative increase of RSS in the latest 4 Olympic cycles.

Negative trends of RSS can be noticed in the case of boxing, rowing, wrestling, swimming

federations. An extremely worrying value appears in the case of tennis federation, which, after three

constantly positive cycles that formed the basis of the present valuable generation of seniors, registers at

present almost 4 times diminished values of RSS!

In the case of team sports, the RSS indicator presents values higher than in the case of individual

sports, explainable by the necessity to build-up at least two teams in order to carry out trainings. Positive

trends of RSS can be noticed in the case of most sportive games federations, except volleyball federation

which registers a low RSS throughout the 4 Olympic cycles, almost close to the critical value (10 is the

number of players in two volleyball teams, without reserves).

Table 5 implies that, although Romania’s Olympic results are decreasing, specialty assistance of

the Olympic teams was, during the latest Olympic cycles more and more varied. This aspect incriminates

the value of the representative sportsmen at the Olympic Games, possibly due to the decrease of the real

basis of selection within performance and great performance sport.

Conclusions

Romania outstood throughout time in the Olympic Games with valuable sportsmen, gaining

respect and consideration; this way sport has become one of the most efficient ambassadors of our

country abroad. Along with the change of the social system, following 1989, sports had also to adapt to

the requirements of market economy, change which has materialised, among others, in decreases of value

confirmed by great sportive competitions. In spite of the nostalgias of great performances obtained by

communist Romania, there are just few people willing to admit the fact that those exceptional results

were the consequence of a ’greenhouse sport’ in which just the gifted ones practised sports and not the

entire people. Nowadays, sports represents a system under deep change which is, as days go by, more

offering to all categories of young citizens, adults, seniors, sufferers, but also registers negative

consequences as far as international distinguishing is concerned.

In spite of maintaining a national sport system, very open in terms of variety, Romanian citizens

practice sport to a lesser extent than in other European countries. Thus, there can be stated that in

Romania, the culture of exercising is low, aspect corroborated with the insufficiency of Physical

Education classes in schools, scarce sports facilities in schools, not enough sports bases or without

appropriate facilities.

The Romanian team of sport trainers has a very important social task in nowadays Romania,

namely that of creating a modern culture of exercising, including performance and great performance

sport, in spite of the more and more varied children’s addictions and of the governmental policies

deficiencies. Romania’s orientation towards the values of Western democracy and alignment to European

politics shall determine national sports federations to create a superior way of organising themselves,

based on previous experiences, on tradition as well as on the examples of other countries with similar

social systems and with superior sports results.

This research brings into attention an indicator not promoted in specialty culture, that is the report

between human resources categories (sportsmen versus specialists), shortened RSS. Without knowing and

imposing an optimal value of RSS according to each sport, the research presents the RSS dynamics

during the latest Olympic cycles, creating observational correlations between top results and RSS value

for each sports federation and Olympic cycle. The accuses brought to the lack of financing in sports must

be mitigated as long as the trainers are paid from public money for an activity they perform with too few

sportsmen. Acknowledging and imposing an optimal value of RSS for each sports federation may

contribute to making more efficient the trainers’ activities, creating new premises for the mass basis of

performance sport, highlighting sports that are attractive for children and young people and rendering

objective the problems within the sports in crisis.

References

1. Anuarul sportului. (1998), (2003), (2006), (2010), (2014). Ministerul Tineretului și Sportului, București, România
2. Badea C. (2016, July 31). Sportul de performanta, strivit de politic. De ce sa ne multumim cu 6 medalii la Rio? Interviu, Retrieved from http://www.ziare.com
3. Comisia Europeană. (2007). Cartea albă privind sportul, Legea 69/2000,Legea Educației Fizice și Sportului, actualizată, Capitolul IV, Sportul de performanță
4. Enciu, A. (2014, november 15). Ce şi-au propus federaţiile sportive pentru Jocurile Olimpice de la Rio. Scor super-optimist: minim 12 medalii, maxim 16. Tenisul mizează pe Halep. PRO SPORT. Retrieved from http://www.prosport.ro
5. Mihăilescu Nicolae, Constituirea structurilor sportive, Editura Universității din Pitești, 2008
6. Sotiriu D., Sotiriu R., Managementul resurselor în Federațiile sportive naționale, București, 2007, p. 100
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