The event opened on Friday, 14 October 2022, with welcome speeches from ENGSO President Mr Stefan Bergh, Mr Marc van den Tweel, NOC*NSF Director, and Mr Bob Roelofs, Administrator of the City Council of Arnhem, and a message from Ms Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.
Other speakers included were Ms Florencia Van Houdt, Head of the Unit for Sport at the European Commission, Ms Marijke Fleuren, President of European Hockey Federation, Ms Inge Jansen, Policy advisor for Sport at the Ministry of Health, Well-being and Sport, UEFA’s Liam McGroarty and Rupert Webster (Strategy Managers), Fnaan Woldegiorgis and Jaap Paulsen from Royal Dutch Football Association, Mr Richard Kaper, Manager Sports Participation at NOC*NSF, and others.
Full programme can be found here.
The two-day event offered a learning and networking experience with interactive workshops for the representatives of National Olympic Committees, Sport Federations and Non-governmental Organisations from all over Europe. United through values based sport that strengthens communities, they joined ENGSO and NOC*NSF to learn and improve their work, approaches and strategies in the field of sports for all, with a special focus on inclusion, equality and youth in sport.
The aim of the European Sport Platform was to inform and educate ENGSO members (National Olympic Committees and National Sports Federations) and other sports NGOs from Europe on the latest developments and strategies on how the European sport organisations and clubs can approach and work with marginalised groups such as LGBTQI+ community, people with disabilities or refugees in sport, and the positive change inclusion of those groups bring to sport federations, communities, cities and nations across Europe.
The next edition of the European Sports Platform will be held in October 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal. Before that, ENGSO members and partners will meet in May 2023, in Crete, Greece, for the ENGSO General Assembly 2023.