ETTU President Stefano BOSI, attending today’s 2013 European Championships official presentation in Vienna, surprisingly announced his candidature to International Table Tennis Federation’s Presidency, in view of ITTF Congress next May 15th in Paris. “Eur,
ETTU President Stefano BOSI, attending today’s 2013 European Championships official presentation in Vienna, surprisingly announced his candidature to International Table Tennis Federation’s Presidency, in view of ITTF Congress next May 15th in Paris.
“European Championships are the Old Continent’s most important event and we’re looking forward a superb edition to be held here in Austria, at Schwechat’s Multiversum, under the guidance of Austrian Table Tennis Federation and Werner Schlager Academy staff, hence this became a perfect opportunity to give an announcement – Stefano BOSI explained during the Press Conference –. Life is full of coincidences sometimes. Werner SCHLAGER was the last European player to clinch World title ten years ago precisely, and it happened just in Paris. I’m here in Austria, now, inside the Werner SCHLAGER Academy, one of most beautiful table tennis facilities in the world… It looks like a full circle to come… This marks a turning point definitively”.
Stefano BOSI drafted a short but exhaustive analysis of current table tennis sport. “Asia improved impressively, that’s why Europe is today’s underdog, whilst other continents were not growing as expected, this means ITTF strategy was not appropriate. ITTF wanted to keep everything under its control, neglecting Continents’ role. Continents must be the core of our sport and work in a very close cooperation, thereby being all together as a whole instead of extraneous. Europe and Asia are ready to cooperate strongly for overall growth, that is our one-way future”.
The Italian manager explained further reasons pushing him to challenge Mr. Adham SHARARA, being in the office since 14 years. “A huge part of table tennis family, including myself of course, disagrees current ITTF strategy to centralize everything and reduce the autonomy of Continents further. This system generated serious problems even in terms of financial fair-play: we got the evidence of some serious infringements happened”.
Mr. BOSI straightforward stated: “There’s no transparency inside our International Federation nowadays. We would like ITTF, one of biggest International Sport Associations in the world with 217 affiliated countries, moving back to a great sport community, rather than a business district”.
After a long career as TT player (7 national titles and Italian national team’s 250 caps) Stefano BOSI, 58, built a huge experience in sport management. In table tennis, he has been Italian Association’s Chairman from 1990 to 2004. Since 1996 he took the presidency of the ETTU (European Table Tennis Union).
