President report on general assembly 7th April 2012

Patricia has been working on the accounts for 2011. They are not yet complete, and will not be presented at this meeting, but they should be ready for the meeting in August in Bulgaria. There were two high and (to me) unexpected expenses in 2011, a debt of more than 4000 Euros to INSEP for the Savate Boxe Française DVDs that were produced in a previous year, and 5000 Euros that had been promised for the organization of the World Youth Championships. This amounts to nearly 10% of our budget for the year.

I am pleased to say, however, that we actually finished the year with nearly 4000 Euros more in the bank. And, I note, that this was before the receipt of most of the rights for the World Championship Finals. On this basis, I feel that we are in a position to look for a more regular administration set-up, and have asked Patricia to work more hours. This will really help the federation, and take some pressure from me. It will also allow more translation work to take place.

Member federations

I am pleased to inform you that since September 2010, China, South Africa and Peru have joined FISav. Bulgaria has re-affiliated. Madagascar and Ile Maurice have stabilized their positions, and are up-to-date with affiliation fees.

We are currently in communication with Comores, Guinea, Cuba, Norway and Chinese Taipei about provisional affiliation to FISav. Ireland (from 2011) and South Africa (from 2012) are now full members.

We do have some issues with lack of response from some member countries, and some countries have debt to FISav. This is an area which we continue to work on.

Anti-doping

Since October 2010, I have been working with members of the Anti-Doping Commission to improve our compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code. I am pleased to inform you that in November 2011, I received a letter from WADA confirming that we have achieved compliance.

Certain issues had to be corrected before we could gain this status:

• To use ADAMS – the Anti-doping Administration and Management System which allows sportsmen and the anti-doping organizations to enter and to share data linked to doping tests.
• To establish a Registered Testing Pool (RTP) - for the year 2011-2012, the WADA agreed a Registered Testing Pool of 20 sportsmen for out-of-competition testing.
• To develop a testing plan acceptable to WADA - the normal rules of WADA would indicate a need for testing more than 50 athletes per year, but we have negotiated a more reasonable figure of 20 per year: 10 in competition and 10 out of competition.

I have worked with the Anti-doping Commission, the SportAccord Drug Free Sport Unit and WADA to update our anti-doping rules, bringing them in to line with the 2009 code.

More recently, we have joined the WADA campaign “Say NO to Doping”, and produced a special tape to be used at International Competitions to publicise this campaign, and increase awareness of the issues of doping in sport. This received a special mention at the recent WADA symposium in Lausanne, where we presented a roll of the tape to the WADA Director of Education & Program Development, Mr. Rob Koehler.

Through SportAccord, we have also set-up an online training program. This consists of 9 modules allowing athletes, coaches and officials to learn about anti-doping issues, and to gain a certificate when they complete the course. The information about this program will be available on our website shortly.

Miodrag Rakic and I attended the WADA ADO Symposium in Lausanne, in March 2011. We took a full part in the symposium, and had constructive meetings with WADA and SportAccord officers. Mr Frédéric Donzé, WADA Director of the European Office & IF Relations was very positive towards us, praising the proactive approach that FISav now takes to anti-doping compliance and education.

W
orld Youth Championships 2011

The first World Championships for young people aged 15, 16 and 17 years were held in Villette d’Anthon in July 2011. The French team won 11 gold medals in this first event, which is not surprising considering the development of Savate for young people in France, however they were not the only winners: Croatia, Madagascar, Ireland, Belgium and Russia also took gold medals. I think the major success of this event was the enjoyment given to the many young people involved, and the links they have made with people from other countries.

• Statutes : need updating, along with our operating procedures
• Expenditure: we must continue to review expenditure. Note: the costs of recognition by WADA/AMA, FISU and SportAccord
• Income : we must increase our income, for example, by showing sponsors and partners (public and private) the benefits they can gain from working with us
• Federations : FISav must consolidate the number of active federations and help them to become stronger, as well as develop ways of supporting new federations
• Fees : make improvements in the collection of affiliation fees and give national federations clear benefits for paying on time – staff are needed for this (the work load for FISav officers is very high
• Responsibilities : continue to clarify the areas of responsibility for FISav officers and Commissions
• Confederations : ensure good methods of operation of the continental federations; their duties and rights should also be clear to all, and be discussed and approved by the FISav General Assembly
• National federations : should be able to identify a route to having their views heard and considered by the continental federations and by FISav
• Statutes, procedures, resources and training materials should be available in several languages. We have, within our membership, individuals who are willing to help with this, however, there are also documents which require professional translation.
• Arbitrage : Our Championships are judged on the quality of the athletes, but also on the quality of the judge-referees. We need to improve the training of the judge-referees, provide them with feedback on their performance, and develop a FISav passport to record their activities.