The 2023 highlights of the sports department

Over the last 12 months, our team has campaigned tirelessly for human rights in and through sport. In 2023, the focus was on the integrity of sport – to ensure the integrity of people, organizations and competitions in sport!

Key moments of the year include:

For the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS):

• The European Sport Charter (ESC) continued to underpin its work, in particular through the support and follow-up visits carried out – in accordance with the new methodology – to Lisbon, Portugal and Bratislava, Slovakia;
• In the area of ​​equality, EPAS hosted a breakfast roundtable on International Women's Day, March 8, to combat gender-based violence in sport and supported the European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE) joint project All In Plus: Funding Greater. Gender Equality in Sport, which launched on May 10;
• On September 27, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a declaration on sports integrity based on the work initiated by EPAS.
• the MARS network (the network of judges/prosecutors responsible for sport) became part of EPAS and held its second meeting on September 18th and 19th; Among other key tasks, the MARS network provides an international “forum” (reference body) for investigations and criminal proceedings that can respond to industry-specific expectations and facilitate cooperation between prosecutors and relevant stakeholders, law enforcement and judicial authorities, integrity authorities and national platforms, anti -Doping agencies, the sports movement and sports betting representatives;
• EPAS continued to be involved in the work of IPACS Task Force 3, particularly in the follow-up and promotion of the Sport Governance Benchmark and its guidelines in collaboration with the IOC and other stakeholders.
• Human rights and sport remained a key priority of the Council of Europe and the ESC and is part of EPAS' overall work in the field of sport. a human rights forum focusing on data protection in sport took place on June 30;
• The biennial EPAS Diversity Conference took place in Liechtenstein (November 28-29) and was organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Education and Sport of the Principality of Liechtenstein as part of the Liechtenstein Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers in collaboration with the organized Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Migrants and Refugees. The topic of inclusion of underage migrants and refugees in and through sport was examined and discussed by key experts from the migrant and refugee and sports communities;
• The pool of international safe sport experts gained six new members, bringing the total to 40 members. The pool held its second annual meeting on December 5, with a roundtable on safer recruitment of staff and volunteers who regularly come into contact with children in sport;
• A second round table took place in Bulgaria as part of the “Start to Talk” project. EPAS is currently supporting the Bulgarian Ministry of Youth and Sport in developing a roadmap for the implementation of child protection policies in sport, including concrete steps to establish Child Safeguarding Officer (CSO) roles. In this context, a first child consultation session was also held in Bulgaria in collaboration with the Children's Council of the Bulgarian State Agency for Child Protection;
• Finally, the EPAS Board of Directors, Advisory Committee and Statutes Committee continued to play an invaluable role in the functioning of EPAS.

For activities related to the conventions:

• Our conventions welcomed new members and ratifications: the Saint Denis Convention welcomed ratification by Germany, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom and signature by Denmark, the Macolin Convention welcomed its ratification by France and the Anti-Doping Convention welcomed their ratification of the Additional Protocol by Italy;
• The Anti-Doping Convention (T-DO) Monitoring Group held its meeting 56Th And 57Th Plenary session meetings in Strasbourg and continued its monitoring work with four new evaluation visits Albania, Belgium, France and Hungary;
• Cooperation between the Council of Europe and WADA was closely articulated at the 60th, 61st and 62nd CAHAMA meetings;
• Anti-doping education work took a big step forward with two workshops focused on how to reach the youngest generation of athletes and how to use the power of education as a tool for clean sport.
• On October 3, a conference on “Right to a fair trial in anti-doping proceedings” was organized in Riga, Latvia, together with the Latvian Presidency of the Council of Europe. In the presence of the Deputy Secretary General, more than 80 sports experts gathered to discuss how recommendation CM/Rec(2022)14 can be applied to make anti-doping procedures fair.
• The joint project “All In Plus” began its journey to promote greater gender equality in sport through data collection, best practices and media capacity building sessions. All In Plus is taking the baton of the All In community project and will advance the work on gender equality until 2025.
• The joint project “Combating Hate Speech in Sport” completed the inventory of hate speech in sport in Italy, France and Germany, organized a workshop on “Developing strategies to combat hate speech in sport” and welcomed the new project ambassador Aauri Lorena Bokesa Abia, Evanthía “Evína” Máltsi and Panos Triantafyllous on board. The joint campaign #SportIsRespect will be launched in early 2024;
• On the occasion of its 4th meeting, the Saint Denis Committee launched the UEFA 2024 Euro ad hoc working group. The committee implemented its findings during its first monitoring visit to Germany, the future host of the tournament.
• Our work on sports integrity related to the manipulation of sports competitions was the focus of the meetings of the Follow-up Committee and its Advisory Group, as well as the Addressing Competitions' Manipulation Together (ACT) project, which enabled the implementation of a technical assistance mission to Morocco, in order hold an onboarding webinar and organize a conference on “Maintaining the integrity of sport by combating illegal betting”;
• This theme was further strengthened by the Sports Integrity Week in Athens (Greece), a first joint venture organized jointly with the International Olympic Committee, INTERPOL, UEFA, the Greek National Platform for Sports Integrity (EPATHLA) and the Greek Football Federation (HFF) and hosted by the Greek Olympic Committee (HOC).

We thank all our delegations, experts, partners and stakeholders who made this such a productive and successful year and look forward to working together to advance human rights in and through sport in the coming year.

We invite you to discover our 2024 activity calendar and mark the relevant dates in your diaries. We look forward to new great initiatives and work in 2024!