SportAccord Merger Meetings Ahead

(ATR) SportAccord Council members will convene Jan. 26 to advance talks about how the federations’ body will merge with the SportAccord Convention.

Around the Rings understands that the council chaired by Gian-Franco Kasper, who is leading the umbrella association for IFs on an interim basis, will study proposals for changes to the new set of draft statutes that emerged from the extraordinary general assembly of SportAccord in November.

Member federations, who voted by a large majority to authorize the merging of the SportAccord bodies, were invited to submit any specific requests and ideas for the new entity by this week.

The submissions of 100+ federations will be reviewed at the council meeting later this month.

Further meetings of the council may be required before revised draft statutes can be circulated to the IFs. They will then be subject to discussion and a vote at the SportAccord General Assembly in the spring.

Ski chief Kasper and ASOIF president Francesco Ricci Bitti have led the federations’ body and SportAccord Convention, respectively, since Marius Vizer’s resignation in the wake of his bitter attack on the IOC at the Sochi meeting last April.

Lausanne is the location of the 2016 SportAccord Convention, April 17-22.

The deadline for cities to express interest in bidding to host the 2017 or 2018 conventions is Jan. 28.

Written by Mark Bisson

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