Everything you need to know: ITTF Presidency 2017!

[yourock]

According to an ITTF communication, Al-Mohannadi has withdrawn from the presidential race. Interesting way of doing it though:

This is bomb news. I think Baal once predicted that one of the candidates would draw out of the campaign just before election. Well, no surprise.


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[Baal]

Also Weikert just fired the ITTF CEO (top staff person not elected). Also ended long standing marketing agreement with TMS. I have no idea what that is all about. Perhaps marks end of Sharara influence? Or something else? Weikert now taking over and making it clear he calls the shots -- and gets the kickbacks now?

Remember, the fix has been in from the start. Players at all levels prefer Saive. I certainly do. But there was never a chance he would win

 

[Baal]

It is possible that by firing the non-elected ITTF CEO (reportedly one of Sharara's friends/cronies) and ending the marketing agreement with TMS, Weikert is signalling to to people who may be hesitating to vote for him that the Sharara days are now over. Perhaps in response to this, the third guy has removed himself from the running. So now (or so the thinking goes) there should be no reason for some of them to vote for Saive. I suspect this may be Weikert's way of just making sure there will be no surprises.

I would personally still prefer Saive just because of new blood etc., but anyway, this is what I suspect is going on. I could be wrong of course. I am not an insider, just someone who has observed for a long time.

Now, the optimistic hope is that with Sharara fully out of the picture the ITTF will stop doing so many dumb things. He was incredibly unpopular among pretty much all players for good reasons and you always had to ask the stupid vs. evil question where Sharara was concerned. Now with Weikert, maybe it is a question of meeting the new boss, same as the old boss, even if he has managed to have the old boss killed. (Metaphorically). But maybe with a clear electoral victory, he would be better. We will see in any case, and it's not like any of us get to vote.

By the way if Saive actually wins, I state here and now, in advance, that from that point forward, nobody should listen to anything I say about the ITTF. I will admit that I was not just wrong but badly and stupidly wrong and that the only thing anyone should listen to me about from that time forward is stuff I write about Viscaria blades, the weights of plastic balls, and biomedicine. Well and maybe the cuteness of Liu Shiwen.

 

[yoass]

Would twere so, and yet would still stubbornly listen regardless.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Sigh, so much behind the scenes that none of you know about lol. Quite frankly I hope Weikert wins. I think ITTF's digital marketing/media and sponsorship has improved a lot since he took charge and he openly supports Steve Dainton the ITTF marketing director who is an absolute legend in that field.

Let's not also forget that ITTF just travelled to Guinea Bisseau and brought it onboard to become the first international sporting organization to affiliate every single country in the world as a member. 226 nations! Amazing.

Don't get me wrong I'd be very interested to see what a player would bring to the table but at the same time, this is an international sporting organization with a large staff base spread across the globe. There's a lot of details involved.

 

[NextLevel]

Sigh, so much behind the scenes that none of you know about lol. Quite frankly I hope Weikert wins. I think ITTF's digital marketing/media and sponsorship has improved a lot since he took charge and he openly supports Steve Dainton the ITTF marketing director who is an absolute legend in that field.

Let's not also forget that ITTF just travelled to Guinea Bisseau and brought it onboard to become the first international sporting organization to affiliate every single country in the world as a member. 226 nations! Amazing.

Don't get me wrong I'd be very interested to see what a player would bring to the table but at the same time, this is an international sporting organization with a large staff base spread across the globe. There's a lot of details involved.

That's quite unlikely but in any case, your view is noted.

 

[yourock]

I think only top game players (I mean this political game) know what is exactly going on behind the scene. Baal' s analysis and observation make sense. But I sense there's more going on, otherwise Weikert couldn't be so intense----firing CEO


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[Baal]

Let's not also forget that ITTF just travelled to Guinea Bisseau and brought it onboard to become the first international sporting organization to affiliate every single country in the world as a member. 226 nations! Amazing.

Forgive me for not being impressed by the extreme use of this FIFA-pioneered strategy whereby the presidents of sports federations are able to stay on forever. Seriously, was signing up Guinea-Bisseau this really the best use of ITTF resources? This has been discussed elsewhere, no reason to beat that dead horse anymore.

I hope Matt is right about Weikert being able to improve ITTF marketing, but Steve Dainton has been in that job for 8 years. If he is a genius, we should see some genius-level results. Soon hopefully. Maybe any day now.

Maybe the end of agreements with TMS will allow some progress to be made on that front. Some people will remember that for a long time Sharara was Director of TMS, who did marketing for ITTF. That was an issue in the corruption allegation Stefano Bosi made against Sharara in 2013; that Sharara mixed his personal interests in with ITTF business to an unacceptable level. The fact that Sharara still won the election in that year is a reminder of how international sports federations operate.

http://www.insidethegames.biz/artic...tens-legal-action-over-corruption-allegations

Again, I hope Matt is right that Weikert will be better for the sport. For sure there is a lot behind the scenes that we don't know about. The problem for some years has been the stuff we do know about. The last couple of years have not markedly increased my confidence.

In any case, what I think, and really what anyone here thinks doesn't matter. We don't get to vote. Now there will be representatives from Guinea-Bisseau who will get to vote at the AGM. Don't be thinking they will be voting for Saive.

 

[Baal]

My hope is that some of what has happened in the last couple of weeks means that Weikert knows he will win. So he now feels empowered to cleanse the ITTF of the vestiges of Sharara and his cronies. And having done that maybe finally will have the ability to modernize the ITTF and actually market the sport effectively in places where it will do the most good -- and do it in a way that is in the best interests of the people who actually play the sport. Sneaking in another 0.5 mm increase in ball diameter is not going to work. Maybe they will have to come up with something else.

 

[yourock]

In the past few weeks, I'm starting to get a clearer picture about this whole politics and corruption stuff. No one is and no one will be clean in politics. So, ending TMS is just transferring power/money from person A to person B, which doesn't necessarily mean ITTF will intend to do more good deeds favoring players. The fact that the biggest sponsor was and is still DHS, demonstrates two things, DHS offers good bid and most likely offers kickback to the one who has a say in deciding sponsorship. Oh...reading too much posts in the forum, I'm also becoming cynical...


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[Matt Hetherington]

That's quite unlikely but in any case, your view is noted.

lol...unlikely ha. Sure thing dude.

 

[NextLevel]

lol...unlikely ha. Sure thing dude.

Okay. Let me put it another way. Nothing you said isn't in the public domain. Most of us would not divulge information that isn't in the public domain. As Baal pointed out, it is usually people who do not understand how vote buying works who parade the addition of more member countries as achievements. Yes, you are a pro player who played table tennis events and works with the USATT and hear things from fellow pros and officials. But nothing you have said is not in the public domain. I would not share anything that isn't public either.

 

[Baal]

I get the point that just because Saive was a great pro and a good person does not mean he has the skill set needed to run ITTF. It also doesn't mean he doesn't.

But on the other hand, the biggest critiques of ITTF are (a) they have had a tendency to ignore concerns and advice of players, (b) they are not honest and transparent about decisions on things like balls and boosters, which relates in part to the previous point, (c) at least one previous president faced serious and credible allegations about corruption, and (d) they have not been really good at marketing the sport in places that matter a lot.

So those are the concerns. Do we have good reason to think that Weikert will makes these things better? Some of it is now water under the bridge. The ball situation will be more stable soon. Cutting ties with TMS has to be a good thing. Some questions to ask are: Are you looking forward to even more rule changes? Are you excited about TTEX? Are you happy with your video feeds of major ITTF events? Has Weikert said or done anything to make you feel good about any of this? You don't to be some sort of "insider in the know" to ask them, and in some cases to answer them.

I am not all that optimistic personally. Hope I am wrong.

 

[NextLevel]

I get the point that just because Saive was a great pro and a good person does not mean he has the skill set needed to run ITTF. It also doesn't mean he doesn't.

But on the other hand, the biggest critiques of ITTF are (a) they have had a tendency to ignore concerns and advice of players, (b) they are not honest and transparent about decisions on things like balls and boosters, which relates in part to the previous point, (c) at least one previous president faced serious and credible allegations about corruption, and (d) they have not been really good at marketing the sport in places that matter a lot.

So those are the concerns. Do we have good reason to think that Weikert will makes these things better? Some of it is now water under the bridge. The ball situation will be more stable soon. Cutting ties with TMS has to be a good thing. Some questions to ask are: Are you looking forward to even more rule changes? Are you excited about TTEX? Are you happy with your video feeds of major ITTF events? Has Weikert said or done anything to make you feel good about any of this? You don't to be some sort of "insider in the know" to ask them, and in some cases to answer them.

I am not all that optimistic personally. Hope I am wrong.

Steve Dainton is from Australasia I believe and is one of the marketing gurus behind TTEX. You can't deny his genius and since he is a legend in the field, surely you should be excited about it.

I think we do have decent reasons to expect things to get better under Weikert. He can't completely insulate himself from the German TT agenda.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Okay. Let me put it another way. Nothing you said isn't in the public domain. Most of us would not divulge information that isn't in the public domain. As Baal pointed out, it is usually people who do not understand how vote buying works who parade the addition of more member countries as achievements. Yes, you are a pro player who played table tennis events and works with the USATT and hear things from fellow pros and officials. But nothing you have said is not in the public domain. I would not share anything that isn't public either.

As I said there is a lot going on behind the scenes. If I was at liberty to discuss it I would have discussed it. I'm very interested to see the outcome, especially now the Qatar candidate has stepped out and publically announced his support for Weikert.

I feel ITTF have had improvements in their digital and social media over the past few years and they are obviously starting to understand that their biggest spectator market is online rather than in-house. Whether or not they can do something to change that is probably the biggest challenge they currently face.

Given the growth of the sport socially around the globe it makes sense for the promotion of TTX, I'm sure that they hope as TTX grows in popularity it will help create more exposure for competitive table tennis also.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

And yes a lot of changes made over the last decade have been at the expense of the player and in an attempt to favor the spectator. I've written about that on my blog some time ago and this has been probably the leading cause for dwindling confidence in the ITTF by players (of all levels) around the globe.

I'll be the delegate for New Zealand and one other proxy nation at the ITTF AGM so I'm very interested to see what's currently on the table for discussion with regards to any further potential changes. I know they have been talking about increasing the max sponge thickness and in Switzerland they have been testing the net height increase (something I definitely don't support).

 

[suds79]

I know they have been talking about increasing the max sponge thickness and in Switzerland they have been testing the net height increase (something I definitely don't support).

Oh for Fs sake why don't they just make it this already. That's what they want right? SMH

 

[TTHopeful]

Net heigh increase Matt? How are they testing it? In a league or some clubs?

 

[Baal]

And yes a lot of changes made over the last decade have been at the expense of the player and in an attempt to favor the spectator.

While at the same time ignoring the spectator based on the quality of video they have provided for some of the important ITTF events. And maintaining one of the worst websites I have ever seen for a major sports organization.

Of course outright lying about the reason some changes are needed doesn't help, for example when Adham Sharara claimed that banning boosters was to protect the health of players, and when he talked about a "worldwide ban on celluloid production". I could go on.

Now to be fair, Weikert is not Sharara. So we will see. But on just one of the new Weikert-era initiatives, I for one am incredibly skeptical about the likely success of inventing a new sport in an attempt to build up support for another sport. Of course I am not an Australian marketing genius so what do I know?

 

[NextLevel]

While at the same time ignoring the spectator based on the quality of video they have provided for some of the important ITTF events. And maintaining one of the worst websites I have ever seen for a major sports organization.

Of course outright lying about the reason some changes are needed doesn't help, for example when Adham Sharara claimed that banning boosters was to protect the health of players, and when he talked about a "worldwide ban on celluloid production". I could go on.

Now to be fair, Weikert is not Sharara. So we will see. But on just one of the new Weikert-era initiatives, I for one am incredibly skeptical about the likely success of inventing a new sport in an attempt to build up support for another sport. Of course I am not an Australian marketing genius so what do I know?

This is an interview with Weikert from around the same time that Boll made his 80% of players are cheaters comment.

http://www.mytischtennis.de/public/...wm-ist-unzureichend-organisiert-ldquo?seite=1

It shows what I mean when I say that Shahara and Weikert come from completely different TT countries.