SportAccord 2020 Cancellation Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

14 March 2020

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – SportAccord has announced with regret the cancellation of the

SportAccord World Sport & Business Summit 2020, which had been due to take place from

19-24 April in Lausanne, Switzerland.

On 28 February, the Swiss Federal Government imposed a ban on large-scale events

involving more than 1000 people. The ban came into immediate effect and was set to apply

until at least 15 March 2020. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO)

moved to declare the COVID-19 outbreak as an official Pandemic. Yesterday at 14:30 CET in

a press conference, the Canton of Vaud under emergency measures imposed a ban on

events involving more than 50 people until 30 April 2020. SportAccord, which brings

together nearly 2,000 delegates, has taken the necessary step of cancelling SportAccord

2020 to give International Sport Federations, stakeholders, partners and attendees as much

time as possible to make arrangements in light of the cancellation.

"Our priority is the health and welfare of our International Federations and delegates

attending our event, so this decision has been taken with the utmost consideration for those

who were planning to attend SportAccord 2020 in Lausanne." SportAccord President

Raffaele Chiulli said.

"This is obviously an extremely unfortunate situation and we are saddened that our

community will not be able to attend our annual gathering, but we wanted to announce this

decision at the earliest opportunity to enable plans to be adapted accordingly for all

concerned."

SportAccord Managing Director Nis Hatt said: "Following the COVID-19 outbreak,

SportAccord has made every effort to find a viable solution for the staging of the

SportAccord World Sport & Business Summit 2020."

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but in taking the decision to cancel the event

at this stage, we have endeavoured to minimise the potential disruption to our delegates’

plans. SportAccord is very grateful for the support of the City of Lausanne, Canton of Vaud,

International Olympic Committee, partners, exhibitors, and delegates in recent weeks. We

are now focusing on the delivery of what promises to be a superb SportAccord World Sport

& Business Summit 2021 in Ekaterinburg and we look forward to welcoming our friends

from around the world to Russia from 23-28 May 2021."

Partners, exhibitors and delegates who had registered to attend SportAccord 2020 in

Lausanne will be contacted shortly with further information.

Follow developments and updates via Twitter @sportaccord or keep up to date via LinkedIn

and Facebook. For enquiries, email info@sportaccord.sport.

ENDS

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only