Decade of 2020 – The time for Fair Play has come
The post-holiday message by the International Fair Play Committee (CIFP)
2019 saw unprecedented activity levels by the venerable International Fair Play Committee - recognizing exceptional acts of sportsmanship since 1963.
Highlights included active on-the-ground promotional presence at 4 senior Olympic sports World Championships, notably at Table-tennis (ittf.com), Fencing (fie.org), Modern Pentathlon (uipmworld.org), and Canoe Sprints (canoeicf.com). Based on the long term partnership with the International University Sports Federation (FISU), CIFP participated at the two Universiades in 2019, the winter in Krasnoyarsk and the summer in Napoli.
Facilitated by the fact that Budapest was named the European Capital of Sports for 2019, the inaugural Urban Games by GAISF (gaisf.sport) and the European Maccabi Games (emg2019.com) were both held in Budapest; enabling the Fair Play flag to fly high throughout the summer.
As the final year of the decade, 2019 was also a year to look back on prior year’s achievements. A special commemoration was held in Abu Dhabi at the occasion of the Grand Slam there, when the historic act of enabling an Israeli team – without any compromises in terms of flag, anthem, uniforms – was achieved the year before, as a result of the collaboration between the international federation (ijf.org), the local organizers (uawjf.com) and the media (Euronews.com). We hope to see many similar acts this decade.
The educational aspects of fair play were fostered by active participation in events hosted by UNESCO, as well as in Nairobi, Tokyo and Budapest, latter together with the European Fair Play Movement.
The IAAF (now renamed World Athletics, worldathletics.org) Track & Field Worlds are always a must-see, and Doha 2019 produced many memorable acts of sportsmanship. Who can forget Dabo carrying Busby for over 100 meters, an “incident” viewed by many millions within the first few hours of its occurrence.
None of this would have been possible without the long-standing and significant support of the International Olympic Committee (IOC, olympic.org) that has been by the side of CIFP since its inception. Watch out for many more collaborations from 2020, starting with the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne where a team of young fairplayers are spreading awareness - as we speak - through innovative use of social media and active public outreach.
CIFP is ever indebted to the Hungarian Olympic Committee (olimpia.hu) as well for having housed its administrative office for the better half of the last 2 decades.
CIFP would also like to recognize the continued generous support of the Foundation for Global Sports Development (globalsportsdevelopment.org) and is very excited with its new fledgling relationship with Cosmo Films Ltd. (www.cosmofilms.com) of India, a global company in the business of packaging films with a long-standing tradition of supporting causes related to sports and underprivileged communities.
Finally, let us take this opportunity and thank the many volunteers around the world involved with Fair Play, which include the Council of CIFP, who in their volunteering capacity, tirelessly promote an old-fashioned – but never out of fashion – concept of fair play, the rejection of cheating in any form, and the relentless belief that the ultimate game-winners are those who act and compete with honesty and courage.
