The CEB congress in San Marino ends this morning with the departure of the delegates. Marco Landi of FIBS.it reported on their website on Saturday to update us on the most important decisions. It wasn’t a spectacular meeting of Europeans Baseball heads without any surprises.
The congress started with an award ceremony. European Cup champion DANESI NETTUNO received a trophy as the best club, the Czech Baseball Association as the best federation. The manager of the Spanish Under-21 squad Miguel Erroz was named coach of the year. He led his team to the title at the European Championships last September. Suzana Santos from Spain was honored as scorer of the year, Sante de Francheschi from Italy as umpire of the year.
Afterwards the elections started. First three new federations got voted into the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) unanimously, Latvia, Moldova (after reorganization) and Denmark (new federation created after separation of Baseball and Softball). They then voted to reduce the number of members of the Executive Committee to eleven and increased the members of the Technical Committee from five to seven.
The congress concluded with the individual elections of the Executive. Only secret ballots were necessary with multiple candidates, which only was the case in the voting for 1st Vice President and 2nd Vice President. The others were simply confirmed for the next term from 2009 to 2012. Martin Miller (Germany) remains president of the CEB, as well as Secretary General Sam Pelter (Israel) and Treasurer Rene Laforce (Belgium).
Riccardo Fraccari (Italy) stays 1st vice president, receiving 27 of 32 possible votes. Alexander Ratner (Russia) was elected 2nd vice president (17 votes) and Gerard Vaandrager (Netherlands) 3rd vice president (elected automatically after withdrawal of Mats Fransson). Also confirmed were Fransson (Sweden), Attila Borbely (Hungary), Monique Schmitt (Switzerland), Juan Garcia (Spain) and Tony Jones (Finland) to complete the Executive Committee.
Miller, who is vice president of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), also reported on the progress of the IBAF campaign to reinstate Baseball into the Olympic program. He hopes that the IOC receives the message that Baseball is more than a sport, it’s a family that sets us apart from any other discipline. He emphasized that the four candidates for the 2016 Olympics Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo all have facilities suited for Baseball, though some more than others. He also said that MLB commissioner Bud Selig is committed to ensure the presence of the best players in the 2016 Olympics and even acknowledged to suspend the season for a few days (instead of the all-star game).
Miller hopes that the 2009 Baseball World Cup helps gaining important visibility in the European media and further said that the World Cup meets all three requirements by the IOC, as an Agenda 21 ‘Green Event’, with a high information standard (ORIS…Olympics Results and Information System) and is supporting 100% the Anti-Doping code of the WADA. The IOC cannot ignore these facts.