Announcements

The Olympic Day held annually on June 23, is celebrated by millions of people around the Globe. Commemorating the birth of the modern Olympic Games in 1894, Olympic Day’s mission is to promote fitness, well-being, culture and education, while promoting the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect. On the occasion of the Olympic Day, we reflect over the contribution of Lotteries in Europe to the Olympic movement.

The sustainable lottery model based on values, like solidarity, integrity and precaution being fully in line with the Olympic values, excellence, friendship and respect, has enabled Lotteries in Europe to sustainably support the Olympic movement. Indeed, Lotteries in Europe perceive Olympism as a philosophy of life which places sport at the service of humanity and have been enthusiastically supporting the Olympic movement in many different ways. 

The global lottery community is poorer, following the loss of the WLA Executive Director, Jean Jørgensen, last Saturday, 20 February 2016. Jean Jørgensen was active as the WLA Executive Director since 2009 and had developed numerous initiatives and brought the whole sector onto a higher level.

EL joins a strong network of partners in a far-reaching pan-European project on sports integrity.

The project “Keep Crime out of Sport – Together against sports competitions manipulations” (KCOOS), led by the Council of Europe, and funded by the European Commission and the Council of Europe was inaugurated on 9-10 February in Brussels.

The study “The impact of Lotteries as a funding source for European sport” carried out by SportsEconAustria proves once again the significant benefits of the lottery funding for the economy. Apart from the well-known contribution of lottery funding to grassroots sport, the study provides some concrete figures about the further impact of Lotteries’ contribution to sport on the economy and employment. 

In the years 2016-2017 the two associations will continue to cooperate towards the promotion of grassroots sport in Europe, address social issues and will also deal with the on-going fight against match-fixing. The two associations will furthermore support each other’s events and raise topics of common interest. 

As a historic partner of sport and a strong defender of sport integrity, EL welcomes the UNESCO Charter adopted yesterday which rightly stresses the benefits of physical activity, the role of sport as a tool for social change and empowerment and the integrity of sport.