“Tackling Corruption in the European Sport”

“Tackling Corruption in the European Sport”

The event organized by the Greek MEP Stelios Kouloglou has taken place in the European Parliament in Brussels on the 7th of November. The conference has gathered many interesting speakers including representatives from the European institutions, as well as the research and sport, in order to discuss the problem of corruption, match-fixing and doping. Our Policy Officer Paulina Tomczyk has taken part in the panel and had an opportunity to highligh the importance of good governance in sport, the role of athletes in reaching this goal and the issues related to the specificity and autonomy of sport in this context.

EU Sport Forum 2017

EU Sport Forum 2017

This event is the biggest gathering of stakeholders in the sport sector, with over 350 delegates from EU institutions, Member States, sport organizations and other NGOs participating. This edition was organized by the Maltese presidency on 8-9th of March in St. Julian’s. The main focus was put on grassroots sport, but a number of other issues and currents in the European sport sector, including sessions on good governance and anti-doping was also dealt with.

The Commission’s dedication to use the Forum to engage in a structured dialogue is appreciated, but it is hard to escape the impression that the Olympic movement seems to be a privileged entity claiming to represent sport on many occassions. A wider stakeholder representation and involvement would be more appropriate and surely would benefit the exchanges.

The EU Sport Forum included the networking area, which was a great initiative aiming to foster cooperation between different organizations and EU funded projects around topics of common interest. EU Athletes was there to represent our Erasmus+ Supporting Women Athletes From Europe (SWAFE) project in the “Women in Sport” theme.

More information on the event can be found on the European Commission website: http://ec.europa.eu/sport/events/201700127-eu-sport-forum_en

Council of Europe Conference of Ministers Responsible for Sport

Council of Europe Conference of Ministers Responsible for Sport

European Sport Ministers have met on 28-30th of November in Budapest, Hungary for a conference organised by the Council of Europe under its Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport. The main themes of the meeting were the anti-doping, promoting the Convention on match-fixing and good governance in sport. EU Athletes’ policy officer Paulina Tomczyk was there to present our position on anti-doping, with an empasizis on governance deficiencies, lack of appropriate athletes’ representation, neccessity to protect athletes’ rights, inefficiency of anti-doping programmes and need for more research in this field. More pictures and information about the conference can be consulted here: http://epas2016.hu/