July 13 & 18, 2013
Sports budget only one-fifth of France
Japan’s sports-related budget this fiscal year is 24.3 billion yen, or only 200 yen per capita. The amount is about one-fourth of that in the U.K. and one-fifth of that in France.
According to the sports ministry’s 2011 report on several countries’ spending for sports in 2010, Japan spent 18.5 billion yen, the U.K. 74.9 billion yen, and France 99.6 billion yen.
Canada, whose population is one-third of Japan, allocated 17.2 billion yen for sports that year, about the same level as Japan.
Not only that, the Japanese government has continued to rely on revenues from the sales of soccer lottery tickets to supplement the national budget for sports.
The government earmarked 14.3 billion yen of tax money for the sports-related budget in 2001, when the state-sponsored soccer lottery was introduced. In 2002, however, it only allocated 8.7 billion yen of tax money and added it to the 3.6 billion yen in profits made by the lottery sales to create the 12.2 billion yen sports-related budget.
Since then, tax money secured for sports-related measures continued to increase and reached nearly 18 billion yen in 2009 as the sales of soccer lottery tickets remained low during the period.
However, once the introduction of a new type of soccer lottery increased ticket sales in 2009, the government decreased the amount of tax money used for sports to the same level at that before 2002.
In April this year, a bill to revise the Sports Promotion Lottery Law was enacted in order to include soccer games outside Japan in the lottery. The Japanese Communist Party, the only party that opposed this adverse revision, demanded that the government increase its spending for sports without depending on profits from gambling.
Japan’s sports-related budget this fiscal year is 24.3 billion yen, or only 200 yen per capita. The amount is about one-fourth of that in the U.K. and one-fifth of that in France.
According to the sports ministry’s 2011 report on several countries’ spending for sports in 2010, Japan spent 18.5 billion yen, the U.K. 74.9 billion yen, and France 99.6 billion yen.
Canada, whose population is one-third of Japan, allocated 17.2 billion yen for sports that year, about the same level as Japan.
Not only that, the Japanese government has continued to rely on revenues from the sales of soccer lottery tickets to supplement the national budget for sports.
The government earmarked 14.3 billion yen of tax money for the sports-related budget in 2001, when the state-sponsored soccer lottery was introduced. In 2002, however, it only allocated 8.7 billion yen of tax money and added it to the 3.6 billion yen in profits made by the lottery sales to create the 12.2 billion yen sports-related budget.
Since then, tax money secured for sports-related measures continued to increase and reached nearly 18 billion yen in 2009 as the sales of soccer lottery tickets remained low during the period.
However, once the introduction of a new type of soccer lottery increased ticket sales in 2009, the government decreased the amount of tax money used for sports to the same level at that before 2002.
In April this year, a bill to revise the Sports Promotion Lottery Law was enacted in order to include soccer games outside Japan in the lottery. The Japanese Communist Party, the only party that opposed this adverse revision, demanded that the government increase its spending for sports without depending on profits from gambling.
