Public financing in Croatian sport

Sport is a complex social activity that encompasses various areas. This, of course, complicates the matter of its financing since it is financed by private and public sources. This is mostly due to the fact that certain sporting activities are considered to be public goods which are then financed by public funds, i.e. the state and local budgets. This paper reports on the analysis of public sources of sports financing. The research confirmed the assumption that in the structure of public sources the local budget prevails, i.e. money coming from local budgets is higher than that coming from central government. Based on the given data concerning local budgets for sports, a trend analysis was conducted. Finally, criteria applied when distributing local funds to sports organizations and single sports were analysed. Based on the correlation analysis, this paper shows that the amount of funds coming from local budgets is correlated with sporting performance (medals won at domestic competitions).