Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga) |28 March 2017

Members express wish to amend constitution

Although Seychelles is yet to win a first Olympic medal, the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association has a proud history of years, beginning in 1979 and at present it has 23 sport bodies affiliated.

But representatives of sports federations and associations have made known their wish to amend the constitution of the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga) to introduce new laws with the intention of upholding democracy. The present constitution was last amended in 2007.

This was during Socga’s annual general meeting at the Eden Bleu hotel on Saturday when Antonio Gopal was given another four-year mandate and re-elected president of the local Olympic body. Mr Gopal was first elected president in 1992 after serving as an ordinary member on the first Snoc executive committee from 1979 to 1982 and as secretary general on the second from 1982 to 1991.

Some of the amendments proposed by the general assembly include a limit in the number of terms members of executive committee can serve, setting up an ethics committee to scrutinise actions and behaviour of Socga members as well as federations and associations and to safeguard the ethical principles of the Olympic movement; co-opting two members from the general assembly to sit on the executive committee.

Members also felt there is a need to draft a national policy regarding players’ involvement with their national teams and not only their clubs, and also to tackle match-fixing as there is big money involved in some sports locally.

Socga president Gopal told the general assembly that their requests have been noted and an extra-ordinary general meeting will be held later this year to discuss all these issues.

The local Olympic body’s vice-president Hughes Adam informed sports federations and associations that they have until the end of May to send in their proposals which will be circulated to all sports bodies during the month of June ahead of the extra-ordinary general meeting in July.

Socga represents both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF). It was previously known as Seychelles National Olympic Committee (Snoc) until March 2007. Snoc came into existence in 1979 when Seychelles became a member of the IOC.

Other than Messrs Gopal and Adam, the other members of the Socga executive committee are Alain Alcindor (secretary general), Mary Banane (treasurer), Selby Dora, Michel Bau, Norbert Dogley, and Fatime Kanté (ordinary members). They will be joined by the athletes’ commission representative.

G. G.