World Squash Federation EGM Brings Change by Howard Harding 3 June 2016
- A World Squash Federation Extraordinary General Meeting, held today
in London and presided over by WSF President N Ramachandran, was
attended by delegates from 43 nations.
It was a WSF Annual
General Meeting in France last November which endorsed a proposal that
a working group comprising a number of member nations would look at
possible improvements to the constitution and structure - a process
felt necessary as the sport and its governance evolves.
Their deliberations during the first months of this year led to a set of eighteen motions being brought forward to today's EGM.
They
ranged from constitutional revisions such as the number of
Vice-Presidents; creating possible new positions; the term of office
allowable; setting age limits for board members; national eligibility
to attend and vote; together with further possible alignment to the IOC
preferred governance statutes for member Federations.
Motions
which passed increased the number of Vice-Presidents by one (to four);
altered the terms of President and Vice-President from four terms of
two years to two terms of four years; and instituted a rotation to
ensure that elections for all positions will not take place at the same
time.
The meeting also set an upper limit of 75 years of age for officers.
A
further amendment was to eliminate the requirement that an incoming
President should have served on the WSF or a Regional Board prior to
nomination.
Other motions that link various Rules directly
into the WSF constitution, including match fixing, wagering, athlete
entourage and 'Principles of Good Governance', and anchoring the status
of WSF as an IOC Recognised Federation, were all approved by the
meeting.
President Ramachandran also reported that the WSF
is commissioning an Independent Review into the sport as a whole to
evaluate governance, structures and relationships to maintain the
process of improving practice and performance.
