Why good governance matters: UIPM Secretary General’s Message

Another month passed and there are more than 10 million confirmed cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and more than half million deaths. The world is not yet calm and a lot of people still have to overcome many difficulties in their lives, while athletes and coaches have to find suitable places to train and to adjust their normal routine. But that’s what we do – adapt ourselves for no matter what conditions, to demonstrate our strong humanity and our resilience.

As an international sports organisation, especially one that governs an Olympic sport founded by the creator of the Modern Olympic Games, we are very aware of the importance of good governance – not only to suit the current trend in the international sporting world, but also as a commitment both to our history and our future.

The result of the 3rd Review of International Federation Governance conducted by ASOIF justified our endeavour across the past three assessment cycles at UIPM. A total improvement of 46 points from 2017 to 2019 encourages the organisation to keep striving for best practice in good governance, and to keep shaping areas where there is room for improvement.

We have had communications from the IOC and Tokyo 2020 about a possible reduction in sports operations for the Olympic Games in 2021. Even though detailed discussion hasn’t started yet, at UIPM we are ready to talk about various possibilities.

All sports and their athletes need the Olympic Games, the whole world needs the Olympic Games to demonstrate humanity’s unbeatable spirit and underline the Olympic values, and we all have to adjust our expectations for future uncertainties to make the impossible possible.

The Executive Board recently cancelled the UIPM 2020 Masters World Championships and postponed the UIPM 2020 Junior World Championships until 2022. We might still have to adjust some other major events that are supposed to happen in later 2020, but it doesn’t mean we are unloading our responsibilities and duties to our community. The opposite is true – we want to be responsible and we are planning for future opportunities.

While normality remains a luxury, positivity is the attitude we have to apply to everything our roles require us to do. Helping each other when we see that we can is a basic thing we can all do. At UIPM, we see reality but also hope, and we do count on all of you – our athletes, coaches, officials and our national federations. Together we can create better sport and a better world.