The former general secretary of FIFA, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, today wrapped up the Play the Game conference by stating that international sport organisations need new rules or structures in order to counter corruption and improve governance.

Mario Goijman, former president of the former Argentine Volleyball Federation, was today awarded the Play the Game Award.

Mary Nicole Nazzaro, lecturer and former sports journalist, gave an attention-grabbing address to Play the Game on her experiences in China. Taking time out from her job lecturing on sports journalism at Shantou University, Ms Nazzaro spoke of the conditions that currently exist for sports journalists in the world’s most populous nation, and also looked to the future.

The U.S. Balco affair consisted of a systematic and calculated method to circomvent sports drug testing rules by using sophisticated and oftentimes undetecable performance enhancing substances.

Delegates at Play the Game today agreed to send a letter to FIFA urging it to speak up louder when journalists are threatened, attacked or penalised for trying to cover football related stories.

Andrew Jennings, the investigative British reporter who has long been a thorn in the side of the International Football Federation, FIFA, wants to drag the federation into the 21st century and demands that it starts utilising the Internet to achieve the transparency that the organisation claims to aspire to.

Italian anti-doping fighter and Head of Research at the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) Sandro Donati returned to the Play the Game with a strong appeal to global regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies to recognise the huge scale of the illegal doping trade – and step up efforts to combat it.

The development of sport does not flow in one single direction from developed to developing nations.