The Association of International Sports Press (AIPS) representative in the world\u2019s football governing body (FIFA) Media Committee has said that the federation does not tolerate any form of discrimination.\u00a0 (Photo<\/i>: AIPS (global) President Gianni M. Merlo<\/i> (photo: Mohamed Fajah Barrie)<\/i><\/p>\n
Gianni Marlo, who is the President of AIPS made this proclamation while responding to concerns of discrimination for accreditation to FIFA organized competitions by local football associations by delegates during the recently concluded AIPS-Africa Congress in Dakar, Senegal.<\/p>\n
The delegates mainly from Sierra Leone, Benin and Nigeria had posed the concern of discrimination by their local FA\u2019s to a Media Consultant Suleiman Habuba, the former CAF Communications Director who delivered a paper on \u2018The role for the media in FIFA World Cup.\u2019<\/p>\n
The delegates vehemently argued that, FA\u2019s in their countries usually sideline those sports journalists they consider as critics when it comes to accreditation for FIFA events, and advocate the procedure be changed in order to have the right people cover such competitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of dealing with the local FA\u2019s FIFA should consider dealing with accredited international sports bodies like the AIPS etc in terms of issuing out accreditation to cover FIFA competitions,\u201d they posit.<\/p>\n
Responding, Gianni Merlo said: \u201cit is a big mistake by Africa FA\u2019s to discriminate against those sports journalists they consider as their critics as this is not a problem in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the issue should not be looked at from a personal angle but rather, there should be written proof with regards discrimination for FIFA accreditation because the world football federation frowns at any form of discrimination.<\/p>\n
He pointed some of the reasons responsible for this was that some local sports Journalist associations accept compromise instead of \u2018fighting\u2019 as a team for independence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving two different sports associations in a country shows that you are weak therefore, you must first build up the power to negotiate as a single body,\u201d Merlo said.<\/p>\n
The AIPS President and FIFA Media Committee member said it is not easy to reverse the present FIFA-local FA\u2019s accreditation policy because it is a congressional issue.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cit is difficult to begin a revolution to negotiate a change from FIFA to local FA\u2019s, to FIFA to accredited international sport bodies like the AIPS for accreditation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Credit<\/b>: SWASAL; Sponsor<\/b>: Mercury Int.\u2019l (SL) Ltd.\u00a0<\/address>\nBy Frank Cole in Dakar, Senegal<\/i><\/address>\nStay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The Association of International Sports Press (AIPS) representative in the world\u2019s football governing body (FIFA) Media Committee has said that the federation does not tolerate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":66100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,824],"tags":[18408,2609,18366,18409],"class_list":["post-66248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","tag-association-of-international-sports-press","tag-fifa","tag-gianni-m-merlo","tag-sports-jouranlists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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