OOAK Table Tennis Forum

What a difference a year makes!

Exactly one year and 6 days ago, on 31 December 2012, I posted my usual yearly message on our website. I touched upon the challenges facing us in 2013, such as securing a title sponsor for the ITTF World Tour, restructuring the World Tour into 3 tiers, further redesigning and refining our professional staff structure, and of course I was looking forward to the return of the World Championships to Paris (Bercy) ten years after the very successful 2003 edition.

I also made an announcement “ … I am proud and honoured to announce that I will seek re-election as President for one last term”. At that time it seemed like a peaceful and lucid announcement. In retrospect it would seem very presumptuous of me, and I humbly apologize for that, as reality took a completely different twist and turn. At the 2013 AGM in Paris, we had an interesting and exciting election, to say the least, resulting in a new 4-year term for my colleagues and me. So, now I can fulfil my promise and serve my last mandate.

2013 was definitely a very exciting year for table tennis. Our sport is ranked by all online sports-ranking agencies in the top 10 amongst all international sports. We are now working hard to move it to the top 5. We are very encouraged by the assessment made by the International Olympic Committee after the London Olympic Games, which moved table tennis to a higher grouping amongst Olympic sports, which resulted in additional funding. We will now incorporate the results of the Olympic assessment in our new action plans. In Paris, we boldly announced that we are adding a new “P” to our P4 Priorities, namely PROMOTION, making it our main priority in the new P5 Plan. In order to move table tennis in the top 5 sports in the world, and in order to move the ITTF even further up the Olympic ladder, we will deploy all our efforts and involve all our volunteer and professional human resources using the DBI (Data-Base Intelligence) concept to achieve our ambitious P5 objectives.

Our mission has always been to secure table tennis in an organized and sustainable structure in all corners of the world. With 218 member national associations, we celebrated a new milestone in Paris making the ITTF the second largest international sports federation in the world, following Volleyball.

In 2013 our social media platforms saw a real explosion with unexpected rates of growth. We are currently the 5th most followed YouTube channel amongst all international sports federations. Our itTV streaming service (free of charge) has also seen tremendous growth as it become the main worldwide window to the world of competitive table tennis.

In 2014, we will have a record number of World Tour events, again divided in 3 tiers, and yes, we did secure a title sponsor for the tour with our good friends GAC Group on board as World Tour Title Sponsors till the end of 2015. And yes, again we will have US$ 1,000,000 on offer at the World Tour Grand Finals in Dubai. Watch it on TV or on itTV.

We will also revamp and redesign our website, which currently ranks 3rd amongst all international federation’s websites in terms of unique users. This is a position we have held for a long time, and although there are fluctuations, we do end up 3rd on the average of the past 12 months. However, our website is in dire need of a fresh new look and we will deliver it in 2014. We will also enhance the quality and programming of itTV to respond to the requests made by our loyal viewers.

One of the highlights of 2014 will with no doubt be the World Championships in Tokyo and the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing. The race for the YOG has already started and young athletes from all over the World are hard at work attempting to qualify for the very restricted field in Nanjing. We will also celebrate the perseverance of our Japanese friends, who took upon them the task to stage a World Championships and made such a bid immediately after they were struck by the triple disaster caused by the infamous Tsunami.

We have another exciting year ahead of us, we cannot predict the future, but from where I am looking, the future looks good for our sport and for our federation. We are more united than ever with cooperation agreements with our Continental Federations and with involvement of all concerned in establishing the future goals and objectives.

I wish our members, our volunteers, our sponsors, our professional staff and all our fans a very Happy New Year and I thank the ITTF’s Executive Committee for its tremendous support.

Adham Sharara
President