SOPROS Paris 2025: Advancing Athletes’ Social Protection

On 13 and 14 January 2025, the latest project meeting of the Erasmus+ project SOPROS was held in Paris, France. The meeting focused on discussing the project’s current status and planning the next steps for enhancing athletes’ social protection in Olympic sports. Building on the foundations laid during the conference in Cologne in April 2024 and earlier project meetings, the Paris meeting prioritised the dissemination of the Survey Toolkits and the Athlete Social Protection Check (ASPC) – a digital tool designed to empower athletes by helping them navigate their social protection rights.

Project Objectives and Context

The SOPROS project aims to raise awareness of the gaps in social protection for athletes in Olympic sports and to provide practical guidance in this complex regulatory field. Although athletes are entitled to state protection like any other citizen, their unique employment status often leads to unclear regulations affecting critical areas such as minimum income, retirement pensions, and maternity protection. Ensuring comprehensive social protection for athletes is crucial due to the short duration of sporting careers and the inherent risk of injuries.

If you want to dive even deeper into the backgrounds of Athletes’ Social Protection, please visit the SOPROS Ressources Website.

Looking ahead, the SOPROS team will focus on promoting the Survey Toolkits and generating evaluation reports based on the collected data. The team urges athletes, sport governing bodies, and policymakers to participate actively by completing the Survey Toolkits and sharing the tools within their networks. These efforts aim to establish a sustainable framework for equitable protection, ensuring athletes are supported throughout their careers and beyond.

Athlete Social Protection Check

For Athletes: Our so-called Athlete Social Protection Check (ASPC) allows you to self-assess your personal social protection situation, learn more about your statutory and athlete-specific entitlements, and compare your coverage with athletes from other countries and sports. Besides, our Global Athlete Survey Toolkit (accessible at the end of the website) allows you to express your personal views about your current social protection situation and stakeholders’ responsibility and duty of care, which is of huge importance to the success of our project.

Athletes can access the Athlete Social Protection Check and the Survey Toolkit here.

Survey Toolkit for Stakeholders

For Stakeholders: Our Survey Toolkit allows you to submit information about your organisation’s activities in the area of athletes’ social protection and to express your personal views about athletes’ current social protection situation.

The Stakeholder Survey Toolkit can be accessed here.

The SOPROS project team expressed satisfaction with the progress achieved, particularly noting that the amendments made during the discussions in Paris will lead to a more efficient dissemination of the surveys. Project Coordinator Lorenz Fiege underscored the importance of the meeting, stating, “The decisions and discussions in Paris have brought us closer to our ultimate goal of promoting integrity and values in sport by assessing, evaluating, and implementing athletes’ social responsibility in Olympic sports. It’s been a fantastic start to 2025, and the team is eager to build on this momentum with upcoming conferences in Brussels and Zagreb, marking Paris just the beginning of an exciting journey ahead.”

The SOPROS project involves the German Sport University Cologne, the University of Rijeka, the Sport Evolution Alliance, Edge Hill University, the Institute for Sport Governance, the European Elite Athletes Association (EU Athletes), the European Olympic Academies (EOA), the European Association of Sport Employers (EASE), and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

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