During its meeting held in Lausanne today, the ASOIF Council decided to create two new taskforces: one dedicated to sports governance and the other one to anti-doping. The sports governance taskforce aims to practically support the federations’ intention to ensure good governance within their own structures as publically declared during the IF Forum earlier this month.

ASOIF President Francesco Ricci Bitti, who led today’s Council meeting, said: “Our governance taskforce will make sure that words will be followed by concrete, transparent and measurable action. It will analyse the status quo, monitor progress and is expected to deliver a first report to our Council at the next meeting in February.”

Chaired by the ASOIF President, the taskforce will include legal and governance experts from ASOIF member federations. In the light of the current review of the IFs’ fight against doping, the other new taskforce on anti-doping will be chaired by World Archery President Ugur Erdener who is also Chair of the IOC Medical and Scientific Commission.  The new body will be in charge of conducting a study on the current anti-doping activities and related expenditure of the ASOIF member federations. The results are expected to deliver valuable input to the ongoing discussions about the potential creation of an independent body for testing, an idea brought up during the last Olympic Summit end October.

Other items on today’s agenda of the last ASOIF Council meeting of 2015 included a presentation by IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell on the preparations for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, including feedback on the test events and the delivery status of the venues. McConnell also spoke about the IF Shared Data Project. This project, originally initiated by ASOIF, is the first of its kind in world sport, currently creating a unique sporting database containing historical and near-to-live results, athlete biographies and future calendar data with content validated at source by the IFs and the stakeholders of the Olympic Movement. In recent months, the IOC has helped to broaden the scope of the project in order to involve all stakeholders of the Olympic Movement.

Furthermore, the Council approved today to create an ASOIF Award which will distinguish personalities from IFs for outstanding services to ASOIF and its members. The award criteria will be determined by the Council in February and made public subsequently. ASOIF will hold its next Council meeting at the end of February 2016, in Lausanne.

• This media release was originally published by the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) on 24 November 2015. To access the original, please click here.