WADA INVITES STAKEHOLDERS AROUND THE WORLD TO PLAY SAFE ON PLAY TRUE DAY 2020'

Montreal, 3 April 2020 – The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is pleased to invite all its stakeholders to join the global anti-doping community to ‘Play Safe on Play True Day 2020’ on 9 April.

Since 2014, in April, WADA and the anti-doping community worldwide have celebrated ‘Play True Day’ -- a day that is dedicated to Clean Sport and is intended to raise awareness among athletes, the sporting public and others about the importance of protecting Clean Sport. The inspiration for Play True Day stems from a WADA-hosted Education Conference in 2013, which was attended by 17 South American countries. While the celebration started as a small South American initiative, last year, the Agency’s digital and social media campaign reached over six million people with numerous individuals and organizations taking part from around the globe.

This year, given the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having around the globe, WADA is seizing the opportunity to engage the global anti-doping community – and all stakeholders in the fight to protect Clean Sport – in solidarity around the theme Play Safe on Play True Day 2020, asking them to share what they are doing and why to curb the spread of the virus.

Therefore, similar to WADA President, Witold Bańka’s pledge below, WADA is inviting athletes, National and Regional Anti-Doping Organizations, Sports Federations, Major Event Organizers and other anti-doping stakeholders from around the world to join the Agency’s social media campaign on 9 April 2020 and promote public health by expressing the reasons why they have pledged to Play Safe on Play True Day 2020.

Witold Bańka said: ‘I invite the Clean Sport community on 9 April to join WADA in showing the world that we are united and doing our part to combat COVID-19 by Playing Safe on Play True Day 2020. As a global community focused on fighting doping in sport, we are throwing our collective weight behind fighting COVID-19. We are following the lead of public health authorities; we have adjusted our anti-doping operations and our daily lives, and we will return the global anti-doping system to full force when the pandemic is behind us."

In order to engage as many stakeholders as possible, WADA has created a number of branded visuals for participants to brand their own Play Safe on Play True Day 2020 photos and videos. These include:

Branded frames that can be layered onto photo or video messages;

A Play Safe Pledge that can be either printed and personalized or personalized digitally for various social media platforms; and

Various GIFs that have been created for the day that can be used on Instagram.

Participants are also encouraged to:

innovate by creating personalized Play True, Play Safe visuals based on their specific country, language and/or sport;

use hashtags #PlayTrue #PlaySafe and #PlayTrueDay both in the lead-up to and on the day in order to extend the reach and impact of the campaign on social media; and

follow the campaign in real time via our dedicated Play True Day social media wall.

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