On the 17 and 18 October, the European Olympic Committees EU Office in Brussels hosted the fourth meeting of the POINTS project, welcoming representatives from the 14 project’s partner organisations.

The aim of this meeting, the final one in 2018, was to give practical information on the educational programme that Single Points of Contact from partner organisations will follow in the first half of 2019 as well as to prepare the main components of these activities. Two seminars will be organised respectively on the topics of competition manipulation and good governance before a more practical one focusing on the role and competencies of the Single Points of Contact on Integrity (SPOCs).

The EOC EU Office Director, Folker Hellmund welcomed the participants to the opening day of the meeting, before POINTS Project Manager, Valentin Capelli provided the latest update of the project to the consortium. In the latest meeting in Prague, back in July, the guidelines for the SPOCS were finalised, and the basic structure of the educational seminars were confirmed. It was therefore the objective of the Brussels meeting to define and confirm the specific objectives for each of the seminars.

The first day focused on the seminar on Competition Manipulation which will take place in January, in INTERPOL headquarters, in Lyon. As part of this, participant should be able to develop a solid understanding of the various aspect of competition manipulation, and start to think about how their role as a SPOC would potential handle a situation in this area. The first day ended with the SIGGS working group who discussed the work on the update of the SIGGS self-evaluation tool. The new version should be opened to partners, for a test phase, at the beginning of 2019.

The second day of the meeting continued to develop the specific objectives of the future seminars, starting with the Seminar 2 on Good Governance. Here, the participants should create the first connection between good governance and the role of a SPOC, understanding the key components as well as the tools, available to support their work. In the afternoon, participants discussed the ways in which some of the practical elements of the educational seminars would take place including case studies, group exercises and practical simulation.

The EOC EU Office would like to thank all the participants for their intensive contribution during the meeting.