Australia’s most successful sporting heroes like Lleyton Hewitt, Shane Warne and Mark Viduka should pay back the thousands of dollars the government spent to train them in their junior years, an independent report said on Monday.
The report by the Australia Institute think tank said that once an athlete earns more than 100 000 Australian dollars (US$59 000) a year, they should begin reimbursing state scholarships to the country’s key training organisation, the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).
The scheme would generate millions of dollars that the government could then use to promote talent in sports and non-sporting areas, the think-tank said.
”It’s a way to increase equity in the way the Australian government supports everyone in Australia, not just sports people but people with talent in a whole range of areas,” said the report’s author, Richard Denniss.
‘The last thing we want to do is to discourage people from participating in the elite level of sport,” Denniss said.
”We just think if you’re going to earn 18-million dollars (US$10 62-million) a year we think you can afford to put back to the community that assisted you when you were young and weren’t earning anything.”
Among AIS scholarship recipients on the list of Australia’s top sports moneymakers, tennis world number one Hewitt topped the list in 2002 with earnings of 18,8-million Australian dollars.
Viduka, a striker for English premier football league side Leeds, was fourth on 7,5-million Australian dollars while cricketer Warne made 1,7-million Australian dollars.
Australia Institute’s proposal was based on a successful scheme in which Australia’s university graduates repay the cost of their education once they start earning more than 24 000 Australian dollars — vastly below the 100 000 benchmark suggested for athletes.
Sports Minister Rod Kemp said similar suggestions had been previously considered but had been deemed too costly relative to the financial gains.
”The figures that I’ve got from the AIS suggest that it is less than one percent of the athletes there would generate a substantial income from sport,” Kemp said.
”The government is not opposed to the idea … if the Australia Institute has got the particular proposals we will look at them.”
But an AIS source said the scheme would not be cost effective.
”So many of our athletes earn next to nothing and many of our sports by and large are not professional,” the source said.
The Australian Sports Commission said scholarships paid to AIS athletes conservatively averaged around 23 000 Australian dollars, but vary significantly depending on the athlete and the sport. – Sapa-AFP