AIPS to maintain ethics with vigour

DOHA (Qatar): The president of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) Gianni Merlo on Monday said that their association’s strength was to maintain proper ethics and from next year its ethical commission would be very hard in its job.

“Our ethical commission next year will be very hard on what we will do,” Merlo said in his speech in the continental meeting of Asia during the AIPS Congress here.

The Italian stressed that without proper ethics they were nothing.

“Our power is our ethics,” the Italian said.

He said that they would have to grow as a proper association as it was very important to keep pace with the time. “We will have to grow properly and in every country,” he said.

He said that their association needed to work under proper rules and hold fair and transparent elections. “We want elections to be held in a perfect way and under the statutes. If we don’t follow rules, it will be a real mess,” Merlo said.

He also stressed the need for reducing the expenses of the AIPS.

“It’s very vital to bring our expenses down. Our budget is not that large,” the president said.

“If we want to reduce our expenses we will have to hold our congress every two years. But in my opinion if we do this we will be very late as changes are happening too fast,” Merlo opined.

He said his association was providing dignity to its members.

Commenting on the role of women in sports journalism, Gianni said that it would be important to give space to women who he said were now very active in the field. “During my visit to a newspaper’s office in Iran I saw that the ratio of women was 60 percent. In Mongolia too there are more women than men,” said Merlo, who ended the 12-year presidential reign of Togay Bayatli in election last year in Marrakech.

“Women are punctual and they are consistent,” he said.

Earlier, in the AIPS-Asia meeting the executive committee discussed various matters regarding the elections of the continental body slated to be held in Manama, Bahrain, on February 12.

Pakistan’s senior reporter Amjad Aziz Malik and Mohammad Qasim Salah of Bahrain are candidates for the presidency.

Amjad has also submitted nomination for the secretary slot. It is expected that Qasim and Amjad will become the next president and secretary, respectively, of the AIPS-Asia which has 33 active members.