Argentinian judoka Paula Pareto, a Rio 2016 Olympic gold medallist, sparked controversy weeks ago when she announced that she would give up her state-funded coaching scholarship to share with athletes facing financial hardship in a country experiencing an unprecedented crisis.

Her comments followed the Argentine government's decision to maintain last year's budget allocations, effectively reducing funding in real terms due to the inflation that has plagued the South American nation for the past 15 years, reaching 211% according to the national statistics agency, INDEC.

In terms of support for judokas, which prompted former Olympic champion Pareto to criticise the National Agency for High Performance Sports (ENARD), the number of athletes supported has dropped from 18 to just 4, driven by the austerity plan in a country that was once an economic powerhouse but now faces record inflation and a GDP decline compared to other nations.

With just weeks to go before the Paris Olympics, Argentina's top athletes are increasingly worried about their future due to spending cuts under the country's libertarian president, Javier Milei. 

These measures have included the closure of ministries and the dismissal of state employees who have been paid for not working, among other adjustments such as freezing salaries for the executive and legislative branches.

"If you're an athlete, they demand results, but they give you less and less," Pareto told TyC Sports, lamenting the resources available to Argentine athletes.

This year, ENARD, the body responsible for supporting elite athletes, froze its budget at 2023 levels. ENARD, a mixed public-private organisation co-managed by the Argentine Olympic Committee (COA) and the National Sports Secretariat, relies mainly on public funding, which initially came from taxes on mobile phones. Since 2017, however, its budget has been dependent on the national executive.

"In a country like Argentina today, where people are hungry, we are aware that there are other priorities," ENARD director Diógenes de Urquiza told AFP.

The ENARD director also mentioned that the country was concentrating its financial support on athletes who had qualified or were likely to qualify for Paris.

Deputy Sports Minister Julio Garro wrote on X that Pareto's comments "overshadow and minimise the government's efforts" to support and help Argentine athletes, who, with few exceptions, are amateurs in the strictest sense of the word.

In fact, football is the only professional sport in Argentina, at least legally, although basketball and volleyball have scholarship systems or service contracts that allow athletes to earn some income from their activities.

Argentina's star footballers, who earn substantial sums abroad, and the country's 1,200 or so top athletes and coaches receive stipends averaging $350 a month. This is slightly higher than the minimum wage of around $255 a month, which has contributed to a poverty rate of over 50% in a country once known as the "breadbasket of the world". Argentina's poverty rate has soared from 5% to 50% in half a century of misguided policies that have affected every sector, including sport, with the exception of football.

"But we live off it," says Argentine swimmer Macarena Ceballos, who dreams of a national policy for athletes. Unlike other countries, Argentina does not have a sports-integrated education system (as in the US or Australia) and there is little interest in sports other than football, basketball, motor racing, tennis and hockey.

This situation forces non-mainstream sports to rely heavily on government support and personal effort to survive. The 28-year-old Ceballos, who was named South America's best swimmer for 2023, has struggled to train for the Olympics in the cold Argentine winter after a pump broke in the pool at her training centre. "It's the same every winter," she rightly complained.

Despite the challenges, there have always been medals and Olympic finalists, usually in team sports that attract public interest and private support. At Tokyo 2021, Argentina won one silver and two bronze medals. One of them was won by the volleyball team, with Santa Fe native Luciano De Cecco playing a key role as a setter (voted the best setter at Tokyo 2020).

Since starting his career in Italian volleyball in 2007 (with occasional stints outside the major European leagues), De Cecco has been highly critical of successive governments and ENARD's performance. "Personally, like many of my teammates, we invested our own money to come and play for the national team," said the player who emerged from Gimnasia y Esgrima de Santa Fe, to the cable TV channel TyC Sports.

"We each spend millions of pesos every day to represent the Argentine team," added the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist and Lima 2019 Pan American gold medallist.

"The CENARD is in significant decline, but it's the heart of all the athletes and we train there. It's our place and we endure the good and the bad". The CENARD is the training centre for elite athletes in Buenos Aires, run by ENARD.

"Today, the bad outweighs the good, but we must continue to support it because we have no other place to train. We'll continue to train there, in the cold, in the heat, without hot water, with all the challenges," said De Cecco, who is preparing for his fourth Olympics in Paris (Argentina will probably qualify via the world rankings, barring a "sporting catastrophe").

Since Javier Milei took power in December last year, his austerity measures to revive the economy have included budget cuts in culture, sport and general spending. He has also halved the size of his cabinet and cut tens of thousands of government jobs, mostly in positions where employees did not actually work.

In addition, Milei believes that the private sector and civil society should step in where the government cannot. He tried to open up sports clubs to private ownership to generate revenue for other sports, but was blocked by Congress and the Argentine Football Association (AFA), led by the controversial "Chiqui" Tapia.

"There are very few sports that can be governed purely by market conditions and profit," said Jon Uriarte, a volleyball player who won a bronze medal in Seoul in 1988.

"The network of clubs that support Argentine sports is unique in the world." According to an official 2021 survey, there are around 12,000 sports clubs and associations in Argentina, which play an important social role in disadvantaged areas.

"How many Argentines can afford to pay their child's club fees?" asked the former Olympic bronze medallist.

Walter Pérez, cyclist and Beijing 2008 gold medallist and president of the Argentine Olympic Athletes' Commission, acknowledges the government's efforts to maintain support for those who have qualified for Paris, but warns that "after Paris, sport doesn't end in Argentina," he told AFP.

"We will have to find ways to secure more funding for all sports," Pérez concluded, acknowledging that in a bankrupt country (and with no access to credit) like Argentina, obtaining funding for sports in the future will not be easy.