Prestigious sports award to Play the Game

Every year since 1978, the Gerlev Physical Education and Sports Academy has awarded individuals and institutions from home and abroad with what has become one of Denmark’s most prestigious sports awards.

Today it was announced that Play the Game will receive the Gerlev Award 2008 next Saturday 4 October when the academy celebrates its own 70th  anniversary and the 30th anniversary of the award.

The Gerlev Award is given
“for an effort which has particularly developed the qualities of sport or of the views on sport’s cultural position and possibilities. The award is given in order to encourage freedom of expression and democracy and to support initiatives that dare dispute the established sports political order.”

For Play the Game, the award is indeed an encouragement, director Jens Sejer Andersen states:

“We are deeply grateful for this acknowledgement, not only because it serves to inspire and delight the few of us on the inside of the institution, but because it has a much farther outreach. The award is a well-deserved recognition to the many, many individuals worldwide who have fought and still keep fighting lonely battles to make the sports community more sensitive to honesty and truth.”

“Sport will never find sustainable solutions to its challenges if it does not open itself up to a free and fact-based debate. Therefore we would like to share this award with all those who are threatened, bullied, marginalised, ridiculed and excluded in sport, but who nevertheless have the courage to bring their knowledge and viewpoints to Play the Game, building together a home for the homeless questions in sport.”

Read more about Gerlev Physical Education and Sports Academy at
http://www.gerlev.dk/dk/lange_kurser/english_version/engelsk.htm