22 Mar 2021
On March 20th, 2021, after the successful completion of the Middle East Hub, the ITTF Executive Committee (EC) resumed their meeting initiated on March 14th, 2021, in order to complete the agenda.
The EC voted in favour to re-instate Mr. Khalil Al-Mohannadi as the ITTF Deputy President until such time as the initial purported decision-making authority of the President and any and all allegations against the Deputy President have been fully clarified and dealt with in accordance with due process and natural justice and as set out in the ITTF Constitution.
Given the challenging conditions of the past 6 to 9 months, the majority of the EC members encouraged the ITTF President to act more collaboratively with the Executive Committee and engage with the EC members in a more meaningful manner. In this regard, the majority of the EC members informed the President that he had unfortunately lost their trust, confidence and support and accordingly it was agreed that all decisions should be made by majority within the EC until the next AGM.
The Executive Committee members all hoped that, in the coming weeks, they would find positive solutions to the recent and ongoing difficulties but felt they now needed to act on their democratic and constitutional rights in order to unify the Executive Committee in the best interest of the ITTF.
As a result of the PwC Conclusions which exonerated the ITTF, WTT, their related entities, their staff and officials (the ‘ITTF Parties’) in clear and unequivocal terms from the harmful and baseless allegations set out on the DTTB letter of 18 November 2020 the Executive Committee had no choice but to seek advice on the appropriate legal and disciplinary actions available against the DTTB so as to protect the image, reputation and goodwill of the ITTF Parties.
The Executive Committee today unanimously agreed to send a formal letter to the DTTB setting out its position (which contains certain proposals) and giving the DTTB approximately two weeks to provide a satisfactory response.
Mr. Nestor Tenca, Executive Vice-President responsible for rules and the constitutional review on the ITTF Executive Committee stated after the meeting that: "for me there is nothing to celebrate in the middle of a crisis, but today won the democracy, common sense and justice".
Other important decisions to come from the meeting included:
--To finalise the application documents and open the 2024 World Table Tennis Championships bid process.
--To prepare -pending on the confirmation of the IPC of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games programme- the application documents for the 2022 World Para Table Tennis Championships in order to open the bid process as soon as the next Paralympic Games Table Tennis events are known.
--To finalise as soon as possible the seeding regulations for the Olympic Games draws.
--To further engage with Houston, USA to find solutions to host the World Championships at the end of November 2021.
The EC was also updated in relation to the Master Continental Agreements (MCA’s). It was noted that Africa and Europe have agreed on their respective MCA’s and the other Continental Federations will be given two weeks to confirm if they are ready to sign them, otherwise, the ITTF would start to facilitate the activities directly with the Member Associations.
It was also discussed that World Table Tennis (WTT) will come with a proposal to ensure the Athletes had more of a voice inside the new structure.
Statement from the ITTF President
On a separate note, the ITTF President, Mr. Thomas Weikert, requested to add to this release as follows:
ITTF President Weikert announced legal action before the respective sports courts against the majority decision of the Executive Committee, calling it an "unauthorized interference with his rights and a blatant violation of the ITTF Constitution".
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