Nigeria’s Wahid Enitan Oshodi has been appointed into the five-man International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF)’s Task Force saddled with the responsibility to monitor the situation and co-ordinate efforts to allow Ukrainian players to continue participating in international events.
Being one of the major items discussed during the meeting of the ITTF Executive Committee ongoing in Singapore was the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
The ITTF Executive Committee expressed concern over the war while reaffirming its full solidarity with the Ukrainian Table Tennis community.
It was the outcome of their discussions that led to the formation of a Task Force which has members as ITTF President, Petra Sörling (Sweden), Executive Committee, Khalil Al-Mohannadi (Qatar), and Oshodi (Nigeria), alongside Zoran Primorac (Croatia) who is Athletes’ Commission Chair, and Steve Dainton, ITTF Group Chief Executive Officer.
The ITTF Executive Committee was held in parallel with the first-ever WTT Grand Smash while the $2m prize money event received high praise from all the members, which were particularly impressed by the sports presentation, the quality of the organisation, and its service level.
Additionally, the Executive Committee agreed efforts towards sustainability should be accelerated, the importance of reducing a negative environmental impact being stressed.
Meanwhile, with the introduction of World Table Tennis, the Executive Committee is considering reviewing the current limit of 40 teams for the World Team Championships Finals. It will open discussions with the Busan 2024 Organising Committee, the item will be included on the next Board of Directors’ meeting agenda.
The ITTF Executive Committee is composed of the following with nine members elected at the ITTF Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 24th November 2021 in Houston, Texas. They joined the ITTF Athletes Commission Chair, Zoran Primorac, and IOC Member Ryu Seungmin to form the complete ITTF Executive Committee.
Also, portfolios were allocated during the Executive Committee meeting as follows; Petra SÖRLING: Strategic Plan, Human Resources, Sustainability, Olympic and Paralympic Games, Academies, External Relations, Member Relations, Diversity (Gender, Universality). Khalil AL-MOHANNADI: Continental Council, Events, World Championships; Alaor AZEVEDO: Health, Innovation, Para Table Tennis; LIU Guoliang: Commercial (WTT), High Performance, ITTF Museum; Masahiro MAEHARA: Entourage, Home of Table Tennis, Sport Science; Alaa MESHREF: Athletes, Development, IT & Digitalisation; Roland NATRAN: Finance, Veterans; OSHODI: Communications & Protocol, Governance, World Ranking; Graham SYMONS: Clean Sport / Integrity, Equipment, Sport for All; Zoran PRIMORAC: Athletes Commission (together with Dr. Alaa MESHREF) and RYU Seungmin: Olympic and Paralympic Games (together with Petra SÖRLING).
