The Erasmus+ funded project “Financial and Business Literacy in Sport for Athletes and Coaches” (FB-LS) conducted its first workshops in Serbia in late summer 2023.
The project led by the Slovenian Olympic Committee is a collaboration between the National Olympic Committees of Slovenia, Serbia, Austria and Lithuania, the North Macedonian Volleyball Federation, the University of Ljubljana and the European Olympic Academies that aims to improve the financial and business education for athletes and coaches. It addresses the problem of low financial and business literacy in athletes and coaches, which may contribute to sport integrity issues like manipulation or match-fixing.
To protect athletes from becoming easy targets for organised crime in sport, the project develops materials and online learning tools for athletes and coaches. The main objective is to secure the financial future of athletes after the end of their sporting careers.
An important part of the project are the workshops designed to raise awareness among young athletes about the importance of the topic. As an athlete’s career is comparatively short and often risky, the FB-LS workshops are designed to help athletes learn how to manage their money properly during their career to provide for their retirement.
The first workshop took place on 25 August as part of the IOC Technical Courses for Coaches in Kosolac, Serbia, organised by the Serbian Gymnastics Federation from 24 to 27 August 2023 where Milos Milenkovic gave the opening speech. The second and third workshop took place a month later, on 22 September, as part of the Sports Fair in Belgrade. Organised by NOC Serbia, Sonja Vasic, Sports Director of the Serbian NOC and Olympic bronze medallist and European champion in Basketball, gave the opening speech. The one-hour workshops were conducted by the Slovenian expert in the field of sports finance and sports integrity, Miha Urek, in which he stimulated a lively discussion among the participants.
Miha Urek
Miha Urek is a former professional handball player and today one of Europe’s leading experts in the field of financial education for professional athletes. He works as a financial educator and financial advisor with more than 15 years of experience. As author of the book “The Winning Mindset – A Guide to the Lifestyle and Financial Management of the Modern Professional Athlete”, he published in 2020 one of the world’s first financial education programmes for professional athletes under the auspices of the Slovenian Olympic Committee.
