SportAccord 2020 cancelled due to COVID-19 ban on large-scale events

Following the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, SportAccord has announced with regret the cancellation of the SportAccord World Sport & Business Summit 2020, which had been due to take place from 19th to 24th April in Lausanne, Switzerland.

On 28th February, the Swiss Federal Government imposed a ban on large-scale events involving more than 1000 people. The ban came into immediate effect and was set to apply until at least 15th March 2020. On 11th March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) moved to declare the COVID-19 outbreak as an official Pandemic.

Yesterday at 14:30 CET in a press conference, the Canton of Vaud under emergency measures imposed a ban on events involving more than 50 people until 30th April 2020. SportAccord, which brings together nearly 2,000 delegates, has taken the necessary step of cancelling SportAccord 2020 to give International Sport Federations, stakeholders, partners and attendees as much time as possible to make arrangements in light of the cancellation.

SportAccord President Raffaele Chiulli advised “our priority is the health and welfare of our International Federations and delegates attending our event, so this decision has been taken with the utmost consideration for those who were planning to attend SportAccord 2020 in Lausanne.

“This is obviously an extremely unfortunate situation and we are saddened that our community will not be able to attend our annual gathering, but we wanted to announce this decision at the earliest opportunity to enable plans to be adapted accordingly for all concerned.”

SportAccord Managing Director Nis Hatt added “following the COVID-19 outbreak, SportAccord has made every effort to find a viable solution for the staging of the SportAccord World Sport & Business Summit 2020.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but in taking the decision to cancel the event at this stage, we have endeavoured to minimise the potential disruption to our delegates’ plans. SportAccord is very grateful for the support of the City of Lausanne, Canton of Vaud, International Olympic Committee, partners, exhibitors, and delegates in recent weeks.

“We are now focusing on the delivery of what promises to be a superb SportAccord World Sport & Business Summit 2021 in Ekaterinburg and we look forward to welcoming our friends from around the world to Russia from 23rd to 28th May 2021.”

Partners, exhibitors and delegates who had registered to attend SportAccord 2020 in Lausanne will be contacted shortly with further information.