In Budapest, April 26-28.2018 was held FINA World Water Polo Conference with many of our directors taking a significant part in it. Please read below, our Executive Director’s, Dragan Jovanovic report.
FINA World Water Polo Conference
In the beginning, I would like to Thank FINA for a few things:
– Involvement of WWPCA and our experts in the whole process of Water Polo Reform 21 in the last 6 months
– Involving the whole water polo community in this project
– Being transparent
– For their vision
– FINA President Mr. Maglione for keeping his promise from last summer that World WP Conference will be held in the shortest possible time and that FINA will focus on helping Water Polo
– Mr Andrey Kryukov FINA Bureau Member for all his passion for water polo and doing way over and beyond what was done ever before for our sport (at least to my knowledge)
Conference exceeded all my expectations. Going into Budapest, I personally wasn’t sure what to expect (since there were conferences and meetings and discussions in the past…) but since the first moment, professionalism, organization, and huge passion and a clear vision that our sport has to be modernized dispelled all my doubts.
The focus of the conference was on almost all parts that water polo needs help with (promotion, marketing, investment, TV and media, development, rules etc…). Our belief that only changing rules will not change our image and make water polo a brand that will be recognized was clearly communicated during many presentations and discussions/meetings throughout the whole conference.
WWPCA was presented by many experts (and board members) in different roles (please believe me that many more of our members were involved behind the scene by providing their valuable input in the last 6 months):
Petar Porobic (President)
Ratko Rudic (Vice President)
Yiannis Giannouris (Director on the Board)
Dragan Jovanovic (Executive Director)
Dante Dettamanti (Member)
The conference was live streamed which was a huge step forward in this process. All water polo community and media could witness the process and presentations live or to get back later and see it.
As one of our directors on the board said the last day of the conference, this was a historical moment for water polo and it will be written in the history as long as all proposals are followed through and implementation is done. For some of the things, it will take longer time, for some other shorter to be implemented but I am truly very optimistic.
I am attaching my first presentation here so that you can see the process that was done and SWOT analyses of our sport and rules and games.
At this moment we are waiting for FINA to make final decisions and recommendations for the next steps with clear timelines.
Best regards
Dragan Jovanovic
WWPCA Executive Director