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European Canoe Association held an Extraordinary Congress after the Congress of the International Canoe Federation (ICF) in Antalya, Turkiye, to present the new Statutes and get the confirmation from the delegates attending the Extraordinary Congress. All the proposed changes to the previous Statutes have been confirmed by the delegates.

 

Jean Zoungrana, president of the ECA, welcomed the support of the delegates given to the proposed changes and improvements in the governance as well as in the strategic plans, “Today we have experienced a historic moment for the ECA with the adoption of the new statutes and a strategic development plan. The national federations supported the proposals that were made by a large majority. This support of the federations is due both to the desire to give a new impetus to the ECA but also to the method of achieving it.”

 

 

In the past months appointed working group worked tirelessly to prepare the new ECA Statutes which are considering the new circumstances and demands of modern sports organisations. The governance working group consisted of eight members, all with rich experiences in canoeing and sports organisations: Jean Zoungrana, president of the ECA and French Canoe Federation, Peter Karai, ECA Board of Directors member, Moira Aston, CEO of Canoeing Ireland, Christian Jacobsen, Secretary General of the Danish Canoe Federation, Alexandros Peratikos from Greece, Vitor Felix, former president of the Portuguese Canoe Federation, David Joy, former Secretary General of the British Canoeing now Paddle UK, and Ep Storming, former president of the Dutch Canoe Federation.   

 

Following the proposals of the working group and based on the results of the survey conducted within the National Federations, the ECA Board of Directors approved the proposed changes and came to the congress to get the approval of the delegates with the voting rights. The proposals received the support of the delegates which will allow ECA to improve its governance and work on the future development of canoeing in Europe.

 

“Working groups were created and mobilized nearly 80 people from twenty different federations. Surveys have been carried out and the federations have been widely asked to give their opinions and these have been taken into account at each stage. The federations have been sensitive to this collective work and shared governance. I am deeply grateful for the work carried out by these working groups, for the commitment of the national federations, and for the reflections also carried out within the framework of the ECA Board,” said Zoungrana.

 

 

Among the most important changes to the Statutes are ECA’s objectives, which include the emphasis of the ECA’s role in organisation of the Championships, athlete’s wellbeing, position of the ECA as the governing body for paddle sports in Europe, reinforced relationships and responsibilities towards the ICF and other associated organisations, clarification of the role of Board of Directors where it confirms that the Members delegate the powers to the Board to run the ECA, with exception of the responsibly of the Congress which is also clarified in the Statutes. Furthermore, the new Statutes include more details regarding the membership in the ECA, such as eligibility, application, suspension, expulsion ..., the governance structure, more detailed clarification of the congress and its running, the powers, responsibilities and appointment of the Board members, establishing the financial committee of the Board and more details about the running of technical committees.

 

“The new statutes having been adopted, we now have to implement them. This will lead us in the short term to create new sports commissions with 5 members where we had one to three members, and to organise the representation of athletes within the ECA. In addition, in the medium term, there is the call for candidacy for the ordinary congress in March 2025 in order to fill the vacant positions and allow a greater consideration of gender equity issues with a minimum of members of the same gender or the election of a vice-president but also now a vice-president. Finally, these new statutes will allow us, at the end of the congress in March 2025, to start implementing our development projects and our sports projects with an organisation adapted to our objectives,” added Zoungrana.

 

In addition to confirmation of the new Statutes, the delegates were informed about the ECA’s Strategic plan, which was also prepared with the help of the Working group where nine experts were involved: Jean Zoungrana, ECA President, Miroslav Haviar, ECA Vice President, Farhad Aliyev, Secretary General of Azerbaijan Canoe and Rowing Federation, Ashley Metcalfe, CEO of Paddle UK, Nina Øverberg, head of development at Danish Canoe Federation, Fred Fack, Secretary General of Luxembourg Canoe Federation, Francesco Iacobelli, manager of official teams at Italian Canoe Federation, Emmanouil Angelaki, Greek technical advisor, and Jose Antonio Roel Vasquez, technical secretary of the Royal Spanish Canoe Federation. Delegates were voting on the five proposals and all were given the support.

 

 

At the end, the strategic plan for the sports programme was presented at the Extraordinary Congress. Here, the technical delegates of their respective disciplines with the help of the members of the working groups prepared the strategic plans, according to the needs of their disciplines, however, there are many joint points addressed in the strategic plan. These include strengthening of the international leadership, consolidation of the presence at Olympic and Paralympic Games, European Games and other multi-sport competitions, development of paddle sports, strengthening of cooperation between nations, aim for excellence in the organisation and media coverage of the sport, increasing of number of nations and athletes at the competitions, protection of the athletes from sport deviances and more.

 

“For the sports programme, it was a question of presenting the progress of the reflections in the different disciplines, the working method and the calendar in order to mobilise the federations to add through their contributions to the drafting of this project. This sports project for each discipline will be presented at the congress in March 2025. As far as the statutes are concerned, although a large majority was in favour of the proposals, there are still different sensitivities that have been expressed and brought other complementary points of view on gender equity, for example where we can still go further, as in some countries, or the structure of the ECA bodies. For the development project, we mentioned for example the need to ensure that in our approaches we focus on sport for all, that we address all audiences, particularly those with physical and mental disabilities,” concluded Jean Zoungrana, the president of the European Canoe Association.

 

The Ordinary Congress of the European Canoe Association will be held in March 2025.