Athletes have been outside the social system for 3 years

Potential collapse of several professional sports clubs after January 1, 2019 poses a serious threat to the situation of more than a thousand professional athletes – with a logical impact on league competitions in football, hockey, handball, basketball, and volleyball, as well as on young athletes. The question is therefore in place: how do the athletes themselves – and their players’ associations – see this situation?

The most serious manifestation of the so-called social security holiday for professional athletes from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018 is the fact that, according to all indications, they have not been paying contributions to the Social Insurance Agency and for three years have been outside the social system of the Slovak Republic. According to representatives of players’ associations and the Learned Law Society I contacted, professional athletes interpreted the contribution holiday to mean that, like the clubs, they also had no obligation to pay social contributions. While they do have the option to pay them voluntarily, my sources say that most do not – if anyone at all. They pay health insurance from the minimum base, i.e., 63.84 euros per month. The consequences of this situation will be addressed later, in the final article on solutions to the current situation.

Where did things go wrong?
The three-year contribution holiday was supposed to create time and space to resolve certain problems in the Sports Act and the situation of professional athletes in team sports, but the fact is that already when the law was adopted, several buttons were fastened incorrectly – and today’s situation is the logical outcome. According to Oliver Pravda (President of SIHPA – Slovak Ice Hockey Players’ Association), “politicians removed provisions from the law at the last minute before its approval that were originally in it and were meant to help clubs obtain more money, making the law less balanced.” In his view, the situation is not helped by the fact that influential people ignore the Sports Act and the state (prosecutor’s office, tax offices, insurance agencies...) “is unable to enforce compliance with the Sports Act.”

Jozef Tokos, adviser to the Union of Football Professionals, claims that the situation was underestimated and that there were no concrete results in the first two years of the transition period. He also criticizes the insufficiently constructive communication between the central government body for sport – the Ministry of Education – and representatives of relevant sports federations or the Slovak Olympic Committee.

Self-employed or employees?
Despite the adoption of the Sports Act, there is still debate about whether professional athletes should be employees of clubs or remain in the position of self-employed persons – which, two and a half years after the law was passed, is at the very least bizarre. The situation in hockey differs from football. With the exception of Kosice, which can reportedly afford it (observation of Slovak Ice Hockey Federation President Martin Kohut), “everywhere else they are self-employed,” says Pravda, adding that “in Europe, team-sport athletes have been employees for decades and this question has been resolved at the EU level; certain standards and principles are in place, confirmed even by European courts.”

According to Pravda, the Sports Act “is unambiguous and every team-sport player in Slovakia should have long since been an employee. Nevertheless, we are still discussing what and how to do, how to save clubs from extinction after they ignored the law for three years.” Tokos states that “professional footballers already sign employment contracts with clubs according to the Sports Act. In football, I do not know of a single case of a contract signed after January 1, 2016 with the status of a professional player as self-employed. Professional football players who signed longer contracts before the Sports Act came into force still have self-employed status even in the second half of 2018.”

However, like Pravda, Tokos claims that “the positions of representatives of some hockey clubs are in complete contradiction with the law.” Both Pravda and Tokos also rely on the opinion of the National Labour Inspectorate, according to which the work of professional hockey players (and, by extension, other team-sport players) has the characteristics of dependent work and they should therefore be signing employment contracts with clubs. SIHPA sent this opinion to all hockey clubs, the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation, the chief sports auditor, and Prohokej – and the result? “Absolutely nothing happens, as if no law or decision of the Labour Inspectorate had ever existed,” says Pravda, adding that the fault lies not with the players but with the clubs for not following this opinion: “The player has no choice; he must sign the contract the club puts on the table. The player can negotiate more or less only how much money he will get and for what period. The clubs put a contract on the table, and the player either accepts it or is sent away.” Unlike in hockey, “in football this is happening,” Tokos notes. “The position of the National Labour Inspectorate is merely confirmation of a legal opinion whose correctness has not been in doubt among sports lawyers for many years.”

Exceptional?
While Jozef Tokos, based on EU documents and exemptions for sport-related contributions in several European countries, believes that professional athletes deserve a special position in the tax and contribution system, Oliver Pravda sees the problem differently: “The exemption for athletes is in fact an exemption meant to help clubs, because clubs will pay lower taxes and contributions for athletes, thus saving money. Athletes will feel the disadvantage of such a solution when they face the biggest problems in their career – during injury.” He gives an example: “If an athlete earning, for example, 3,000 euros a month gets injured, during sick leave he will receive wage compensation not from the sum of 3,000 euros but from the minimum wage, because the club paid contributions from the minimum wage. If he has, for example, two small children, pays a mortgage or rent, or a car, gets injured and spends three to four months on sick leave, he will receive less than 500 euros – because the club paid contributions from the minimum assessment base.”