CHI Geneva Says No to the Anti-SSR Initiative
On March 8, it is not only the future of the SSR that is at stake, but also that of Swiss sport. With a substantial reduction in the SSR’s budget, sport would lose its showcase, its sponsors, its audience and its visibility, which would have serious consequences for young talent and for the diversity of Swiss sport. This is why CHI Geneva rejects the anti-SSR initiative submitted to the Swiss people for a vote on March 8.
Last December, Swiss Top Sport and Swiss Olympic launched, in collaboration with various sports federations and event organizers—including CHI Geneva—the sports committee opposing the anti-SSR initiative. Numerous figures from the Swiss sporting world have thus committed themselves to highlighting the importance of the SSR for sport and to expressing their opposition to the anti-SSR initiative. Among the prominent personalities supporting the rejection of the initiative are Marco Odermatt, Olympic champion and three-time world champion in alpine skiing; Camille Rast, also a world champion in alpine skiing and an amateur rider—who was moreover a passionate spectator at the 64th edition of CHI Geneva last December!—as well as Lia Wälti, captain of the Swiss women’s national football team. Equestrian sports are also well represented, with Martin Fuchs, vice world champion and European champion, as well as the President of the CSIO of St. Gallen, Nayla Stössel, and the CEO of Swiss Equestrian, Michel Sorg, not to mention of course the CHI Geneva Organising Committee, with its General Director Sophie Mottu Morel and its Sports Director Alban Poudret.
The SSR broadcasts on average around 9,000 hours of live sport per year. Around thirty different sports are regularly aired on television, via streaming or on the radio, not to mention the many reports produced for its various programmes. From Athletissima to the Tour de Romandie, via the Ice Hockey World Championship—not forgetting, of course, major equestrian competitions such as CHI Geneva, the World Cup Finals that took place in Basel last year or the CSIO of St. Gallen—All these events are broadcast in all national languages and across all regions. More than half of this airtime is devoted to sports that are not in the media spotlight. This is a unique case in Europe.
If the SSR’s financial resources were to be reduced, coverage of major international competitions—from the Football World Cup to Grand Slam tennis tournaments, including the Olympic Games—would gradually shift to pay television. Less popular sports would no longer be broadcast on Swiss television, with the fatal consequence that attention given to Swiss athletes would gradually disappear. Less visibility, less sport, fewer Swiss sporting achievements.
Sport provides incomparable emotions and unites our country beyond linguistic and regional borders. When Switzerland celebrates its victories, it celebrates them together. These moments of emotion and shared experience exist only because the SSR makes them accessible to everyone.
Those who love sport say no to the anti-SSR initiative.
More information: comitesportif.ch / Direct link to the committee’s supporters
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