Merlo elected new president as Camenzuli retains secretary post

Italian Gianni Merlo is the eighth president of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) following elections at the 68th AIPS Congress held recently in Marrakech.

Merlo succeeds Turkey's Togay Bayatli. He was unanimously elected by the 86 member associations, with 60 first preference votes.

The other candidate for the president's vacant seat during the election was Alain Lunzenfichter, of France.

Long-time Malta delegate Charles Camenzuli was the only official in the executive committee not to be contested for his post of general secretary.

Camenzuli, who was first elected at the AIPS executive in 1989 in Gothenburg, addressed the Con-gress soon after the elections and highlighted priorities to be implemented during the coming four-year term.

He also appreciated comments made at the official opening of the Congress by Dr Adolf Ogi, Special Advisor of the United Nations General Secretary, who said that the role of the sport media is imperative in today's world.

In his speech, Merlo stressed that as 2005 is the 'International Year of Education and Sport', the AIPS will be doing its utmost to give priority to developing countries besides im-proving the worldwide recognition of the sport media.

He also talked about the role of the media in the social aspect of sport as well as the importance of facing the fast-growing technological development to the benefit of the world sport media.

The congress also honoured Bayatli after his 12-year term at the AIPS helm.

The newly-elected AIPS Executive Committee for 2005-2009 is:

President Gianni Merlo (Italy); first vice president Carlos Garcia (Canada); general secretary Charles Camenzuli (Malta); deputy general secretary Esat Yilmaer (Turkey); treasurer Jorge Ribeiro (Portugal);

Vice presidents - Yannis Theodo-rakopoulos (Greece), Faisal al Qanai (Kuwait), Laima Janusonyte (Lithua-nia), Nikolai Dolgopolov (Russia), Manoucher Zandi (Iran);

Members - Yaoming Gu (China), Jaber Al Harami (Qatar), Hans-Joachim Zwingmann (Germany), Obi Mitchell (Nigeria), Aderson Maia Nogueira (Brazil) and Emanuel Fantaneanu (Romania).