00:00A man's word is his honor, and I have honor, that's why I keep my word.
00:06And during the campaign I said I was going to lift the suspension of gun permits.
00:14Adelardo de la Espliella says it's a name made up of words, at least that's what he claimed a few days ago.
00:21When he lifted the general suspension of permits to carry firearms, one of his proposals to
00:27Campaign.
00:28However, it is not true that the president is fulfilling all his promises,
00:33And he has lacked the words to support, for example, another of the banners with which he sought votes,
00:39that he would not let the athletes of Colombia down.
00:42Regarding sports under this government, they're doing nothing right now; in other words, Petro's government has been a
00:47A sworn enemy of sport.
00:49We won the most important match of the 21st, don't worry.
00:52Oh yes, he's the most important brother.
00:59A child who plays sports, a young person who dedicates themselves to sports,
01:03He is a man who will never wield a weapon, or who will never use drugs.
01:06The paradox appears in his first draft of the nation's general budget.
01:11Gustavo Petro's government had left a proposal for 2027 of 575.7 trillion,
01:20And from the sprig she returned it to present an even larger one, 634.9 trillion, close to 59.3 trillion
01:30additional.
01:31It is the highest budget in the country's history, and the government itself dubbed it the budget of
01:38the truth.
01:38The problem is that this generosity did not reach the sport.
01:43While the overall budget increases, the Ministry of Sport will have around 40% fewer resources than it did previously.
01:53has this year.
01:54The comparison is compelling, so we'll explain it to you calmly.
01:59For 2026, the current year, the sport has a current budget of 496,087 million pesos,
02:11of which 441,892 correspond to investment.
02:17The remainder, just over 54 billion, is in operation.
02:21By 2027, the new government's proposal is only around 297.7 billion.
02:28In other words, the government of Abelardo de la Espriella proposes to give sports almost 200 billion less than one
02:38year to next
02:39that what the Petro government left behind.
02:42The current situation forces us to look far beyond Abelardo or Petro,
02:48Because we need to understand what is happening with public investment in sports.
02:53When public finances are tight, the Colombian state seems to find it particularly easy
03:01cutting budgets for sports or culture.
03:05It is paradoxical in this case because the presidential campaign showcased support from major sports figures.
03:13However, barely a month after the presidential inauguration,
03:18The budget signal points in the opposite direction.
03:24It would be simplistic, however, to reduce this story to the fact that Petro wanted the sport and Abelardo did not.
03:31A few years ago, the former president was heavily criticized for the very harsh cuts he made to sports.
03:38It's worth remembering that Petro, initially, had not proposed the nearly 500 billion pesos that he gave to the [unclear - possibly "the government"].
03:47sport.
03:48Instead, he proposed a figure close to 310 billion.
03:53It was during the legislative process that the budget ended up rising to 496 billion.
04:01Therefore, that last figure cannot be attributed exclusively to the previous administration.
04:07But it does represent the starting point for Colombian sport today.
04:13What many people ignore is that the underlying problem is fiscal.
04:18Colombia is facing an increasingly difficult combination of challenges,
04:23smaller budget space, insufficient revenue,
04:28high debt and mandatory expenses that the government cannot simply erase.
04:33In fact, one of the reasons why de la Espriella increased the general budget for 2027
04:41It was precisely to acknowledge commitments that, according to his administration, were underestimated.
04:47Additional resources for pensions, health, public sector salaries,
04:51money for universities and for the Fuel Price Stabilization Fund.
04:56But that's the point.
04:58When a large part of the spending is already secured,
05:01Sectors such as sports are exposed to cuts.
05:05The funny thing is, we've already seen this movie.
05:07When it became known in 2024 that the sport of the Ministry of Sport
05:12It was going to collapse by 2025, there was a whole scandal.
05:16Congress members called for political oversight debates,
05:19sports leaders protested
05:21And the federations warned about the consequences.
05:26The sector mobilized to protest because the cut was brutal.
05:30The Ministry went from having more than one trillion pesos in 2024
05:35to 464.366 million in 2025.
05:40However, what is happening now is no less serious,
05:43Well, another huge drop is looming, this time of almost 40%.
05:48However, the public discussion still does not seem to have that same dimension.
05:53Petro's government, in fact, left a contradictory history with sports.
05:58First, he took the portfolio to levels never seen before.
06:02By 2023, the Ministry had approximately 949.1 billion available.
06:08In 2024 it reached the highest point in its history.
06:12It began with an appropriation of approximately 1.36 trillion.
06:17and after postponements and modifications,
06:20It ended with a record-breaking budget of approximately one trillion.
06:25That's when the disaster happened.
06:28464 billion in 2025
06:30and finally about 496 billion by 2026.
06:35Another step like this, with the largest budget ever for Colombian sports
06:39to the most abrupt cut the young portfolio has ever suffered
06:43created during the government of Iván Duque.
06:47Why did it happen?
06:48The fiscal crisis explains part of it, but not all of it.
06:52Mil Deportes received a record amount of resources,
06:56But he had a lot of trouble spending them.
06:59By mid-2024, he had only spent a small portion of the available funds.
07:05And although by the end of the year he managed to commit almost the entire budget,
07:09a good portion had not yet been translated
07:12in payments or goods and services actually received.
07:16When the Treasury had to decide where to cut spending due to the fiscal crisis,
07:21He then found a ministry with a lot of money allocated,
07:24but with serious problems using it on time.
07:28However, we also need to tell how that story ended.
07:31After the budget hit, the ministry substantially improved its management.
07:37In 2025, it closed with a 98.51% execution rate in commitments.
07:43on a current allocation of 449.6 billion,
07:48the best result of the previous three years.
07:50In other words, the argument that money should be taken away from sports.
07:54simply because he doesn't know how to run it,
07:57It has considerably less strength today than when the crisis began.
08:02That is the ministry that de la Espriella found.
08:05It's not one with 1.3 trillion or with enormous amounts of dammed resources,
08:11but one that came from years of cutbacks.
08:14He had corrected a good part of the execution problems
08:17and this year it has 496 billion.
08:21We cannot ignore the following.
08:22The outlook Petro left for sports in 2027 was terrible.
08:27His government had projected only 208 billion for the portfolio in the budget.
08:33Abelard increased that figure to about 297 billion,
08:38nearly 89 billion more.
08:40But the increase is insufficient given the resources
08:44with which the ministry currently operates.
08:47In practice, their proposal still means taking away around 40% of the budget
08:54that has sport in 2026.
08:56Therefore, more than fulfilling his promise not to let the athletes down,
09:01Espriella's first budget confirms a new cut for the sector.
09:06And the contradiction is even greater,
09:08because while the new government increases by almost 60 billion
09:13the general budget proposal that Petro had left,
09:16Sport is losing resources again.
09:18Recreation and physical activity would fall by around 62.5%.
09:24and the training of athletes is around 34.7%.
09:30Why does Abelard do it?
09:31Because of his promise to reduce the size of the state
09:34He encountered a much more uncomfortable reality upon coming to power.
09:39Pensions, debt, health, payroll and other obligations do not disappear by presidential will.
09:47His government needs to settle the accounts.
09:50And at the same time, it is proposing the largest budget in history.
09:56Because a large part of those commitments cannot be reduced.
10:01Austerity, then, ends up concentrating where there is some political room to do so.
10:08The risk is thinking that the problem is limited to how many medals Colombia will win.
10:14in the next Olympic Games to be held in Los Angeles in 2028.
10:19High performance is just the latest visible link in a much longer chain.
10:26Before that, there's the child who needs to go to an Intercollegiate Games to compete for the first time.
10:33The sports school of a municipality that depends on national resources.
10:37The situation deteriorates because the investment never arrives.
10:42Coaches, leagues, federations, recreation and physical activity programs.
10:48And the athletes and para-athletes who need complete training cycles to compete.
10:54In 2025, with 464 billion, the ministry itself acknowledged that it required at least 900 billion.
11:03to fully support your plans, programs, and projects.
11:08Therefore, Colombian sport is once again entering a risk zone.
11:12And the discussion that Adelardo de la Espriella must answer goes beyond defending a figure on a sheet of paper
11:20from Excel.
11:21If the new president's goal is to slim down the state, as he has promised,
11:26It's worth asking which portfolio you consider most dispensable.
11:30Because if sport matters so little that every fiscal crisis starts with that,
11:35Perhaps the upcoming discussion will not only be about how much money the Ministry of Sport will have in 2027.
11:42Perhaps it's much more uncomfortable.
11:44Why does Colombia want a Ministry of Sport?
11:47If every time the accounts don't balance, the State itself leaves him without the tools to do his job.
12:03Thank you!
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