POSTED: Friday January 16th 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Commission Holds First Meeting
Group works to ensure federations’ status as softball-only
ISF President: “The Transition Commission’s work is a crucial part of our campaign to be reinstated to the Olympic Program,”
Plant City, Florida, USA; 15th January 2009: The first meeting has concluded for the Transition Commission on Membership, established by the International Softball Federation to help some of its member national federations achieve independence from other sports.
“The Transition Commission’s work is a crucial part of our campaign to be reinstated to the Olympic Program,” said ISF President Don Porter.
“The Commission will work with those national federations presently linked with other sports to assist them in gaining their own independent status,” the ISF president explained. “This is an important step in removing any confusion that exists within the Olympic Movement.
“Recently three federations have moved to independent status. Their experiences will provide an example to the remaining federations moving forward.”
Mr. Porter noted, “Our (ISF) rules offer membership to softball-only organizations and we want to work closely with those federations which presently are affiliated with other sports.
“The Commission recognizes the challenges that this goal presents.
“As a first step, we will be working directly with each of these federations to resolve their specific concerns and needs. We have promised support for our federations during this process and their responses will be important in determining what level of support is required,” Mr. Porter said.
Softball Australia vice president Darryl Clout is the chair of the Transition Commission on Membership. Besides he and Mr. Porter, other attendees included ISF Secretary General Andy Loechner, Deputy Secretary General Ms. LOW Beng Choo, and representatives from Africa, the Americas, and Europe. The group convened at the ISF world headquarters here.
Softball was first featured in the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, and last year’s competition in Beijing, which was won by Japan, was hugely successful with a total attendance close to 180,000 and a continuation of the sport’s excellent record of no positive drug tests in major competitions.
Further details on the Olympic reinstatement campaign are available in the OTHER DOCUMENTS section of http://www.BackSoftball.com.
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Name: Bruce Wawrzyniak
Organization: ISF
Email:
Phone: +1(813) 864-0100
URL: http://www.ISFsoftball.org
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