Aleksander Čeferin: UEFA ‘trailblazers’ of the integrity of football
The fourth day of the summit held in Cascais, Portugal, saw a range of speakers and topics, focused on enhancing integrity in sport across the board.
The Sport Integrity Global Alliance, SIGA, held the fourth day of its Sport Integrity Week summit in Cascais, Portugal, on Thursday, continuing with the successful hybrid model of in-person and remotely connected speakers addressing a wide range of topics promoting all facets of integrity and transparency in sport.
AS is a proud media partner and fully supports SIGA in its mission to foster greater integrity throughout Sport.
Čeferin: “I invite everyone to follow our trail”
On Day 4 of the summit, UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin emphasised the importance of a collective effort to enhance sporting integrity.
“Dear friends, thank you for the invitation and opportunity to address you during the SIGA Sports Integrity week,” Čeferin said.
“Nobody in this room needs a reminder of what integrity means for our society.
“Each of you devoted your life and career to the service of truth, which is the most challenging service there is.
“I will not speak about our success in the vital areas of sport integrity either, such as our fight against doping, against match-fixing, and against discrimination.
“We are well aware of how much more needs to be done in each area to protect the health and dignity of our players, fans and competitions.
“And trust me, these are the battles that we will endure. However, I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the challenges our sport and society are facing cannot be resolved by individual action.
“Sharing the same goal is not sufficient. We must act together to achieve it.
“European football proved this unity’s power in recent years, always standing for what is right in difficult times of health, economic and humanitarian crisis, often overcoming the obstacles beyond the boundaries of the sports itself.
“We must continue doing so as the main principle of good governance is to lead by example.
“When we established the partnership with SIGA in 2019, Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros called us trailblazers of the integrity of football.
“Now I invite everyone to follow our trail. Rest assured that in UEFA, our member associations, and other stakeholders you will always have a supportive and reliable partner in our quest to tackle assaults on sports integrity, and advance in good governance, ethics and youth protection.
“We must never forget that it is our deeds that define us the same way that we define them. Thank you for your attention.”