New Year’s message 2020: Racism, doping and match fixing make sport a giant with feet of clay

Anas Aremeyaw Anas was awarded for his brave and risky investigation against corruption at the AIPS Sport Media Awards in Lausanne (Photo Carlo Pozzoni)

Gianni Merlo - AIPS President

LAUSANNE, December 31, 2019 - In the world of sport, 2020 was promoted by the IOC as a milestone for reform. This should change the direction of many initiatives and at the same time clean up the world of sport, which suffers from pollution just like the environment, leading to dramatic and dark scenarios.

Medicine - Agenda 2020 should be good medicine, the antidote to corruption in all its forms and a tonic to restore strength to a debilitated body. Yes, the major sports organizations are currently enjoying wealth and ease, but they also seem to be giants with feet of clay, because without intellectual honesty sport risks heading towards failure.

Racism - Unfortunately racism, instead of shrinking is growing in an abnormal and unexpected fashion, helped by ignorance created by the so called New Media. It's worrying because it is in continuing expansion. Often the media have underestimated this abborrant phenomenon and it's necessary we now take a clear, strong position. There is not a lot of time left because the culture of racism can destroy all the good things that sport has built over a century.

Honesty - We continue to ask ourselves why it is so difficult to become honest executives. Many reply that we are all children of a society that loves tricks and tries to survive by unhealthy means, because it is easier to get by with subterfuge and then say, but everybody else does it....

Manipulation - Now there is still the fight against doping to hold the line, but in the meantime we forget to verify how much the manipulation of results is expanding and is becoming the control room of doping.

Delegitimization - In this certainly unpleasant panorama we journalists live in uncertainty, because we have not yet fully assimilated the new system of work. We are attacked from many sides, because the fake news tsunami was artfully created to delegitimize our work and our credibility. The public is disoriented and for this reason we must resist and fight back with professional honesty. It would be wrong to give up, because the minds behind the fake news tsunami want to create an intellectual desert to take over the dreams of the youth. The right word is resistance.

Awards - In a month we will celebrate the second edition of the AIPS Sport Media Awards in Budapest, which has been very successful and I must say that the submissions received have been excellent. It is exactly this that makes me optimistic for the future, the resistance also comes from here, from the desire to demonstrate that it is possible to do serious and quality sports journalism.