The football industry needs to step up for integrity, feel the urgency of reforming itself and move from words to action. Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, SIGA Global CEO, flagged these and other pressing issues during his keynote speech at the Thinking Football Summit, hosted by Liga Portugal.
Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros portrayed the threats facing the industry, from lack of financial transparency to corruption, including many other key topics. For every problem there is a solution, and Integrity is, he stated, the goal Football must seek to achieve.
“Integrity is king and it must be placed on the top of the agenda. Without integrity there is no trust, and without trust there is no passion from the fans, there is no confidence from the investors to continue to invest not only their money but also their reputation.
Everyday, despite the marketing, the propaganda, and the positive campaigns, we see incidents that tarnish the reputation of the Sport we love.
SIGA exists to restore the trust that had been broken, to reignite the confidence in the industry. To tackle these problems, even if Sports organisations had the best intentions, we need governments to assume responsibility. We cannot continue to postpone urgent reforms, as we have seen year after year. We need international organisations to become agents of change, to have real leadership and make things happen. Without a genuine culture of integrity, we will not succeed. I encourage you to be the leader that exists in you, to promote integrity and good governance in Sport. SIGA exists to usher Sport into a new era, an era of enhanced governance and integrity, an era when Sport can be trusted. That is why SIGA designed a set of Universal Standards that provide the silver bullet to ensure that we have meaningful real, tangible, integrity and transparency. This is a moment for action, because actions speak louder than words”.
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ABOUT SIGA
SIGA is the world´s leading organisation for Sports Integrity. Supported by more than 200 international multi-industry supporters, we are creating a whole new landscape for the global sports industry by promoting the implementation of the highest integrity standards and delivering independent global rating and certification for Sport.
Funded by its members, SIGA is the only organisation to bring together all key stakeholder groups – Sport, Government, International Organisations, Global Business and Civil Society – from every region in the world, around one critical, fundamental Cause: to foster greater Integrity throughout Sport.
SIGA is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, as a non for profit association, funded by its members, and comprises of the following continental subsidiaries: SIGA AMERICA, SIGA EUROPE and SIGA LATIN AMERICA.
Click on the hyperlinks for the list of SIGA Members and Committed Supporters and SIGA Partners.
For more information on SIGA, including its vision, mission and reform agenda, please refer to the website: www.siga-sport.com.
To contact SIGA, please email: comms@siga-sport.com.