Lottery license given away

In 2004, the British were ranked tenth, with only nine golden medals, or three times less.

But who gets the merit for this sudden increase of the British Sport? Alistair Campbell, former Spokesperson for Tony Blair, declared that the success is based on the politics that Britain has applied for supporting sport.

“This success has many fathers, but I would specify the sportsmen and the former government of John Major, who built the National Lottery and that enabled the investments in elite sports.

According to the official data, the British National Lottery has given 28 billion pounds for sport and ard, or 30% of the revenues. Only in the last year they gave 2 billion for the Olympic Games.

The result was a real success, not only with the results of the British team, but also with the organization of the games that also impressed the Albanian Prime Minister. But the Prime Minister’s euphoria remained only in his declarations, because Albania’s results were a defeat.

Albania did not receive any medal and the only mentioning of it in the international media was for being the first country that was caught using doping, and this doesn’t make any Albanian proud.

Sports in Albania remain with low income. In 2012, the government gave only 6 million USD for sports, less than 0.05% of the GDP.

Albania is a poor country and with a small budget, and the government justifies itself by saying that there are other priorities. But the budget is not the only way to finance sport. Many countries, including those with a powerful economy, have found other ways for supporting sport.

While Britain, Austria and every other state in Europe have obliged by law the national lotteries to give most of their revenues for sport. The Albanian government is selling the lottery license without giving any financial obligation to the winning company.

The only obligation is that they must pay 10% of the annual turnover as a special tax for gambling, which in Europe has a twice smaller activity than in other countries.

The lottery money should have financed the national teams, as in every other country of the world. The revenues in Albania will go as big profits to a foreign company that is now known because of one of most suspicious tenders in the world.

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