Parliamentarians, policymakers, athletes, sports organisations and experts gathered in Athens on 4 and 5 November to participate in a conference on promoting safety, integrity, equality and inclusion in sport and launch an instrumental Parliamentary Alliance for Good Governance and Integrity in Sport.
The Alliance will add a parliamentary dimension to the current multi-stakeholder efforts to improve sports governance. It will aim at reinforcing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)’s capacity to address issues in sport and to uphold the role and actions of national parliaments in the design and implementation of policies aimed at enhancing the governance and integrity of sport at both national and multilateral levels.
Jointly organised by PACE and the Hellenic Parliament, the conference brought into focus some of the issues that are faced by the world of sport such as preventing violence and abuse, tackling doping, match-fixing and illegal betting as well as equality and inclusion in sport.
The conference provided a privileged opportunity to Alexandre Husting, Chair of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS), to present EPAS’ action to safeguard sport integrity while protecting human rights, notably through the Network of Magistrates and Prosecutors responsible for sport (MARS Network). “EPAS will continue to act to ensure the safeguarding of integrity in sport and the protection of human rights in order to, as the European Sports Charter states, ‘adopt a common European framework for the development of sport in Europe, based on the principles of pluralist democracy, the rule of law and human rights’. The Parliamentary Assembly can count on EPAS if it wishes to promote values-based sport and to achieve the four expected outcomes mentioned in the programme,” he stated.
Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, EPAS Governing Board’s Gender Equality Rapporteur and National coordinator for Cyprus of the “All In Plus” joint EU-CoE project, contributed to the panel on equality and inclusion in sport, highlighting the important objectives and inputs of All in Plus.
George Mavrotas, Chair of the Follow-up Committee of the Macolin Convention, contributed to the session on “understanding the problem and its extent: old and new challenges” by presenting the extent of the phenomenon and the value of the Macolin Convention in combating the manipulation of sports competitions at global level.
More information:
@CoE_Sports, 