The WAF crisis has been in development for half a year now. The RAA press agency reminds you that the posting of these materials results from lack of trust in WAF president Assen Hadjitodorov, and that the duty of RAA is to present the WAF problems.
We have asked the RAA president, European Board of Directors for WAF member, Alexander Filimonov, to comment on the crisis and the ways out of it.
Alexander Filimonov:
Half a year has passed since the big WC crisis in Lithuania. What do we have now? Or should I say – what don’t we have?
There are no adequate actions from the federation’s leader to solve the crisis.
There are still no medals for the WC winners.
There is no official decision regarding the punishment of Panzetti for his improper behavior, and also no official apology from him.
There are still no doping test results.
The document, according to which the RAA must pay a penalty for the three sportsmen, who failed doping tests, has surfaced only after the WC’s. This document should have also been handed to officials from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Slovakia, generally sportsmen accused of doping on the WC’s in 2013 in Poland.
But no documents regarding the penalties have reached the recipients. Talking on the issue, Mircea Simonescu called up the protocols of the WAF Conference, which states the obligation to pay penalties after such misconducts.
This obligation is under no contest. We all voted for it, because we consider war on doping our main duty! But the protocol is not a document regarding payments, and the duty of the Secretary General of WAF was to inform Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Slovakia of the duty to pay the penalties and attach relevant documents.
This was also not done.
The team officials were forced to pay double fines (when registering teams and before weigh-ins), under threat of not being allowed to participate. People paid money with no receipts, no documents. This is another issue – lack of transparency in WAF finances, controlled solely by Assen and Mircea.
It’s time to put an end to this.
One person keeps usurping the power at the top of European and World Federation, at the same time.
And the effects of that are bad in both places.
We would like to ask all EAF countries to give a vote of distrust against Assen Hadjitodorov, at the EAF Congress, to remove him from EAF, and to choose a temporary EAF president among the EAF Board members, to nominate a temporary Secretary General of EAF.
These means will serve to reduce the level of damages done by Hadjitodorov’s incompetence.
At the EAF Congress in Malaysia the Russian delegation will move to annul the controversial decision by WAF Board to penalize Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Slovakia, and vote for return of the money.
Press Representative for RАА
Ivan Dobrorezov