El presunto 'milagro' del deporte espanol en tiempos de crisis: mito o realidad?

With unemployment reaching 6,000,000 people (26.2% of the workforce) and youth unemployment rate at 55 per cent, Spanish economy is suffering its most severe crisis since the 1930s. The austerity measures put into place by the Socialist government since 2010 and further by the conservative government in power from autumn 2012 have seen budget cuts across all policy areas. Somehow paradoxically, Spanish professional sport has come out of age in the last years with significant performances in some of the most media-friendly sports: World and European champions in football, world champions in handball, world champions, twice European champions and twice Olympic silver medallist in basketball, major victories for Rafael Nadal or Fernando Alonso, to name a few. This paper has a twofold objective. First, it will present dome basic data of sport participation in Spain and results of elite sport. This shall provide the context for the second part, in which the discourse of relevant stakeholders in the governance of Spanish sport, namely government, governing bodies and athletes, will be analysed. Methodologically this paper uses semi-structured interviews to gather information from the relevant actors. The analysis presents the main themes of the stakeholders’ discourse in their reaction to the new financial scenario of Spanish port.