‘Silence is not an option!’

‘Silence is not an option!’ – ’The protection of athletes is the highest good.’

On the weekend of the German Fistball Championship in Mannheim, reports of an abuse case shocked fistball in Germany.

IFA President Jörn Verleger gave an interview to the SWR a few days ago, which is reproduced in excerpts in the report. Here is the full statement.

‘Since 2016, the World Fistball Association has adopted a comprehensive policy and procedure to protect all individuals in the fistball family. This so-called ‘Safeguarding Policy’ was last updated in December 2020 and recommendations were added to IFA member associations to adopt their own guidelines and procedures to protect athletes from discrimination, harassment and abuse.

IFA ‘Integrity Officer’ for all international events is currently former IFA Vice President Vikky Buston from New Zealand, who also helped develop the first guideline.

For us as a world federation, every report must be taken seriously, the person concerned must be trusted and appropriate investigations must be carried out. We also expect this when an incident occurs in a member federation.

To raise awareness of the dangers and tasks, the IFA offered a workshop on the topic of Safe Sport as part of World Fistball Day in 2022, for example. In addition, we as IFA regularly participate in workshops and measures of the IOC and our umbrella organisation AIMS and GAISF (including Toolkit 2017, 2021 GAISF-IOC Workshop, 2023 GAISF-IGNITX Athletes’ Safeguarding Workshop). Furthermore, we have currently asked the fistball family to take part in a survey ( https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage. aspx?id=n2ekHAn8sU-Ouajx5l-fHIfQ9HywOwJKjgB75KHpBupUM0NENFdYVlZRUFA3V0tRNktNWURHRkM1Mi4u&route=shorturl ) to prepare further training measures.’

‘We are committed to a culture of looking and acting. Seeking help is a sign of strength. Anyone who is affected or has knowledge of incidents: You are not alone – we listen, support and act confidentially. Every report is taken seriously. Those affected decide how to proceed at all times,’ has been on the Faustball Deutschland homepage since yesterday. This is to be expressly welcomed.

‘There were others who suspected it and looked the other way,’ this statement from Laura moves us very much. No one should be left alone with this topic.