News in brief 24 May 2007

First female Olympic chairman in Norway
Tove Paule has been elected as the first female chairman of The Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports. All other candidates, except Roald Bergsakker, stood down before the election. Paule got 96 votes against Roald Bergsakker’s 65.

The new chairman wants to clean up the organisation and create a platform where the focus will be on listening to each other, open communication, and last but not least respect for each other. 

Paule is former Secretary General of the Norwegian Gymnastics Association and she has had many duties nationally as well as internationally.   

Odd-Roar Thorsen was elected first vice president and Børre Rognlien was elected second vice president.

Jennings exposes secret FIFA document
Investigative reporter Andrew Jennings exposes Minutes of the Meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee, 22 and 23 March 2007 on his webpage.

“They say that Football is the People’s Game - but the People are not permitted to know how FIFA controls their Game. Here is a rare insight into what Sepp Blatter and his friends say behind closed doors in FIFA House....  Here's the Minutes that Blatter doesn't want you to read!” Jennings writes on the updated webpage www.transparencyinsport.org  

Third WADA world conference on doping in sport

WADA organises its third World Conference on doping in Sport in Madrid, Spain from 15-17 November 2007. The World conference is now open for registration for media, delegates and observers.

The work of the Conference will be centred on the World Anti-Doping Code review process. The Conference will enable the international sports movement and governments worldwide to discuss the proposed changes to the Code and its related standards. The objective will be to achieve commitment by WADA stakeholders to the adoption of the revised version.

For further information and registration, visit www.wadamadrid2007.com

Founding of Football for Development and Peace
Con-texto Urbano, a member of the streetfootballworld network, have held the initial founding meeting of the Colombian network for “Football for Development and Peace.”

The aim of the network is to strengthen the participating organisations and help them ensure the sustainability of their work. Furthermore, they are determined to increase public awareness of their work with children, youths and women in Columbia. So far, eleven Columbian organisations are part of the network. 

The meeting was held in Bogotá, Colombia on May 17th and 18th 2007.  

Read more here

Sport and technology conference in London
On Friday 29 June 2007, delegates from all over the world will meet in London for the third edition of ‘Sport and Technology: The Conference.’ This year the conference will be hosted by Inmarsat, a global satellite communications provider, and it will be held at their headquarters in London.

President and CEO of realtime sports wire service The Sports Network, Mickey Charles, will give the opening keynote address after which the conference will go into panel debates on ‘Convergence’, ‘Protecting Digital Assets and the Rise of Social Networking Sites’, ‘Venues as Television Studios’ and ‘Technology versus Referees.’

The conference is open for registration.

Read more here