Sandro Donati wins Play the Game Award 2007

November 1 2007

Sandro Donati, one of the world’s leading anti-doping fighters, today received the Play the Game Award 2007 in Reykjavik for his courage and determination in revealing cases of doping and corruption in Italian and international sport and for his tenacity in researching the links between doping and international organised crime.

The Play the Game Award is awarded by the organisation Play the Game which aims to strengthen the basic ethical values of sport and encourage democracy, transparency and freedom of expression in world sport. It pays tribute to an individual or a group of persons who in their professional careers or as volunteers in sport have made an outstanding effort to strengthen the basic ethical values of sport.

For the last five days delegates from 50 countries have been assembled for the Play the Game conference 2007 in Reykjavik with governance in sport as the main theme. The award was presented during the closing ceremony of the conference by a previous winner of the Play the Game award, Canadian freelance journalist, Laura Robinson. She said:

”Sandro Donati pioneered a quest for integrity and truth in sport. First he spent decades working as a coach, and from that vantage point he saw what was happening in his sport in terms of doping, and commenced an incredibly courageous voyage through the dark deep waters of organized crime and drug dealing."

"He became an international expert, not only on the trafficking of drugs, which led him to investigate organized crime and put his career and life in danger. At the same time he continued to publish articles on methodologies in training and the philosophy of sport and the active body. Sandro Donati is the definition of a renaissance man—one of balance and a graceful but active intelligence. It is with great honour that I give the 2007 Play the Game Award to Sandro Donati," Robinson said.

Sandro Donati was surprised and happy about the prize.

"I am very glad for your prize. I am glad that I have a lot of very high quality friends like you. It is important to me. Play the Game has helped me many times when I had problems and helped break the isolation, I have experienced," Sandro Donati said.

To learn more about the Play the Game Award 2007, click here