The study, presented at the Tribuna de Honra of the Centro Desportivo Nacional do Jamor, carried out by consultancy firm PwC, intends to reflect the total impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on national sport. According to the analysis carried out and requested by the Olympic Committee of Portugal, the Paralympic Committee of Portugal and the Portuguese Sports Confederation, the pandemic will have implied, last year, a decrease of around €595 million in terms of gross added value and a loss of around 16,000 jobs, compared to the 2019 data.

In a presentation that was attended by several entities and representatives of different federations, José Manuel Lourenço, president of the Paralympic Committee of Portugal, argued that this study “symbolises the targeted discrimination that sport experienced”.

“There was a lack of Government support, but the same cannot be said of the local authorities and it should be noted that in terms of programme contracts, they were strictly complied with. The problem hit those who don’t have a voice, the smaller clubs and associative movement, and not the high income ones. The costs and impact were not at high level competition, although it will have an impact in the coming years”, warned José Manuel Lourenço.

Like José Manuel Lourenço, the president of the Olympic Committee of Portugal believes that the “severe impacts were felt in grassroots sports, in organisations with less economic capacity and less installed technical capacity. Those were the ones who suffered the most. And it is these, mostly, that need to have public support in order to survive, recover and develop their activities”, he underlined.

Carlos Paula Cardoso, president of the Portuguese Sports Confederation, recalls that sport “has not yet recovered financially from the 2011/2013 period and is already subject to cutbacks, in addition to having suffered an increase in costs for practicing sports due to testing requirements.”