The European Commission organised a high-level virtual conference entitled The Recovery of the Sport Sector After the Covid-19 Crisis: The Way Ahead, held online on November 17, 2020.

Opening and welcoming words were done by Ms Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.



The welcome address was followed by a keynote speech by Mr Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee who shared the experiences and activities of the IOC and response of the sport sector to the Covid-19 pandemics in general.



The conference also featured the testimonials on how the Covid19 impacted the sport sector. Moderated by Mr Brian Maguire, the speakers and panellists consisted of senior officials from IOC, EOC, UEFA, European Parliament, European Commission, Council of EU and EU member states, sport industry and athletes and sport events’ organisers.



The first panel discussion was on key challenges and lessons learnt from the crisis for grassroots sport organisations while the second panel discussion focused on the impact of the crisis on growth and jobs in the sport sector and possible ways to recover.



The conference brough together over 600 representatives of sport movement, EU institutions and EU member states, allowing the key stakeholders to share their views and discuss the impact of the COVID-19 to sport, and participants to ask questions to the panellists. European University Sports Association (EUSA) followed the event with great interest.

Commissioner Gabriel concluded the event by thanking the speakers and participants for their engagement, presented the findings of the research on the impact of Covid-19 on sport, which will be shortly publicly available, and also highlighted the main tools and actions of the European Union to combat negative effects of the pandemics and support the activities in the fields of sport.

For more information, please visit https://ec.europa.eu/sport/