President Svein Arne Hansen chaired his first Executive Board meeting at the Head Office in Lausanne this week following the European Athletics Elective Congress.
“With this first EXBO in Lausanne, I am pleased to say that we have already started ‘leading change’,” said Hansen, referring to the title of his election manifesto.
“We have prepared a business-oriented organisational structure for commissions and working groups, with mandated tasks for the Vice-Presidents, which we will present to the European Athletics Council in June to ratify.
“We are now sending out a letter to our 50 Member Federations requesting the names of persons to be involved in the future of European Athletics as part of these commissions and working groups.
“It is important that the federations put forward those who have the working capacity and expertise to make a real contribution to these groups.”
The EXBO, which includes Vice-Presidents Dobromir Karamarinov, Jean Gracia and Frank Hensel, and Director General Christian Milz, also prepared a proposal for the revamping of the bidding system to be presented to the Council for approval. This will include structural changes to the Evaluation Commission, ensuring it is independent and provides recommendations to the Council following visits to bid cities.
“These changes are part of our drive to ensure good governance of our sport on the continent,” said Hansen.
Among other decisions in the Tuesday-Wednesday meeting, the EXBO agreed that a Clubs and Youth Conference will take place 6-8 November this year.
On the Wednesday morning, the EXBO also received presentations from each Head of Department at European Athletics.
“We received excellent status reports from the respective departments. We have a lot of work to do, and I have been very pleased by the professionalism and dedication shown by all our Head Office staff,” said Hansen.
The next European Athletics Council meeting will be 12-14 June in Oslo, Norway, following the Bislett Games.
Along with ratifying the EXBO proposals, the Council will decide to which cities the 2017 European Athletics U23 Championships and European Athletics Junior Championships will be awarded.