Change The Game takes center stage at CON-X 2024
The collaboration between Federazione Italiana Baseball Softball and the Change The Gameassociation, founded by the journalist Daniela Simonetti and Vero Volley Consortium President Alessandra Marzari, has been ongoing for several years now to combat sexual abuse in sports.
The partnership has since developed to provide information and training to coaches to make them aware not only of the great and delicate responsibilities they have in their role as educators towards young athletes but also to heighten awareness of those who have entrusted them in their position of authority on and off the field. More importantly, Change the Game hopes to equip coaches with the necessary tools to identify symptoms of distress and to intervene in helping their athletes.
Change The Game, in its journey, has grown greatly, has networked at a national and international level, has broadened the field of its attention and action well beyond strictly sexual abuse. In fact, Change The Game defines itself as an 'association of volunteers and volunteers against abuse and violence of an emotional, physical and sexual nature in sport, working against all those behaviors that prevent athletes from living their sporting experience peacefully, at all levels and at all ages.
The FIBS/Change The Game combination has therefore come forward compared to what is currently mandatory for all sports entities by Legislative Decree no. 39/2021 and by the CONI National Council Resolution no. 255 of July 25, 2023, or the obligation for affiliated ASDs and SSDs to prepare and adopt organizational and control models of sporting activity as well as codes of conduct compliant with them within 12 months of communication of the Guidelines for the preparation of organizational models and control of sporting activity and codes of conduct for the protection of minors and for the prevention of harassment, gender violence and any other condition of discrimination, which FIBS published on August 31, 2023, as well as the appointment, by on July 1, 2024, of a 'Responsible for abuse, violence and discrimination, with the aim of preventing and combating any type of abuse, violence and discrimination against members as well as to guarantee the protection of the physical and moral integrity of athletes'. The adoption of these organizational models is a mandatory condition for affiliation and re-affiliation of the Companies from January 1, 2025.
Thanks to the collaboration with Change The Game, the Federation has organized a training course dedicated to club representatives, coaches and managers, but, more generally to all those who work within the clubs, not only to provide the useful elements to get started in compliance with the provisions of the aforementioned regulations, but to counteract from every point of view abuses in sport of any nature: sexual, physical, emotional or cases of negligence and carelessness, which have become, as Daniela Simonetti recalls in her presentation "a international emergency that requires targeted interventions and adequate prevention.”
CON-X 2024 presents the first opportunity to make this path available to the movement, for the realization of which FIBS and Change The Game have called together faces of great impact in sport, but above all high-level skills in such a delicate matter: Saturday, January 27, 2024, from 1 pm to 2.45 pm, at the Sala della Piazza, together with Simonetti, who will introduce the topic in general terms. In addition, there will be: K1 legend and ex-Senator Josefa Idem to talk about the 'Motivation of the young athlete', Team Italy softball sensation Fabrizia Marrone to discuss the report 'Abuse and violence in sport' and some of the data that emerged from the Nielsen/Change The Game research that generated it, AC Milan champion and football manager Filippo Galli to analyze the objectives and tools that the world of sport adopts when it welcomes a young athlete and the environment it creates around him. Lawyers Paola Puglisi and Valentina Aragona will also elaborate more specifically into the obligations established by the Safeguarding regulations.
Participants will then be able to ask the speakers their questions and at the conclusion take the verification tests which, upon completion with satisfactory score, will allow them to receive the Certificate of Participation in the Safeguarding Course from the Federation.
Daniela Simonetti, ANSA journalist and essayist, created and founded Change The Game in 2017, the first Italian association against abuse in sport. You are the author of the investigative book "Flock Impunity: sex, lies and silence in the world of sport", published by Chiarelettere, you received the International City of Como award with Dacia Maraini on the technical jury. Born in Taranto on 14 July 1964, she began her journalistic career in 1988 at ANSA, first as a parliamentary journalist and then as a sports reporter. In 2023 she won the Simply Woman International Award.
Josefa 'Sefi' Idem, born in Goch, Germany, on 23 September 1964, world and Olympic individual kayak champion, began her sporting career in the German national team, wearing the blue since 1990, winning 43 medals (17 gold) for Italy between the Olympics, World Championships, European Championships and Mediterranean Games. There were eight editions of the Olympic Games in which she participated, continuously from 1984 Los Angeles to 2012 London, the first two with Germany. She was Senator of the Republic in the period 2013-2017, during which she dealt in particular with human and social rights, education and sport, also briefly covering the role of Minister for equal opportunities, sport and policies in 2013.
Fabrizia Marrone, born in 1996, originally from Chieti, is with the Abruzzo club Atoms, where she took her first steps. His first 'important' call-up to the national team dates back to the summer of 2015 to participate in the Under 19 World Cup in Oklahoma City. In the meantime, she moved to Bussolengo to play in Serie A1, following Enrico Obletter. In her club palmares there are Scudetti and Champions Cups, while in the senior national team she joined in the summer of 2017, with the European Championship in Bollate. In 2018 shw took part in the Italian expedition to the World Cup in Japan and in 2019 she was among the standard bearers of qualification for Tokyo 2020, participating in the 2021 Games after having won the European title in Castions di Strada. In 2022 she took part in the Italian double commitment, at the World Games and the European Championship, in which she finished with 11 hits in 25 innings. In 2023, at Castions di Strada, she was once again the hero of the qualification for the Final Phase of the 2024 World Cup. Since 2020, she has worn the Inox Team Saronno jersey.
Filippo Galli. Born in Monza in 1963, central defender at the Milan school, he exploded into the first team in the 1983-84 season, after a year in Pescara. He remained with the Rossoneri shirt until 1996, collecting 217 appearances and winning five Scudetti, three Champions Cups, two Intercontinental Cups, three European Super Cups, four Italian Super Cups. For Team Italy, he boasts seven appearances in the U-21 national team, with which he won the European bronze in 1984. Having finished his career as a footballer in 2004, he immediately began his career as a coach, still at Milan, with the Primavera, reaching the role of assistant coach of the first team in 2008. He then became the Director of the youth sector until 2018. Since 2019, he has been involved in the development of youth football for the FIGC. From 2021 to 2022, he was Head of the methodological area of Parma Calcio.
Valentina Aragona, born in 1987, lawyer since 2014, carries out judicial and extrajudicial activities in the various areas of criminal law in favor of companies, including public ones, sports federations, third sector bodies, especially specialized in the healthcare sector and natural persons. She deals with the construction of privacy models and corporate compliance monitoring activities with consequent reorganization of processes and identification of areas at risk of crime with a specific focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, companies operating in the pharmaceutical and scientific sector and entities of a partly public nature . She is a consultant in the field of contracts for companies, sports federations and pharmaceutical companies. She carries out judicial and extrajudicial activities in sports matters in favor of players and primary sports federations.
Paola Puglisi, born in Palermo in 1966, has been a lawyer since 1999 and deals with civil and sports law and holds the office of bankruptcy trustee at the Court of Palermo. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fencing Academy of Naples. Appointed by the President of the Court of Naples, she is also a member of the Honorary Jury of the National Fencing Academy. She has been a member of several arbitration panels, also carrying out the functions of president. She has collaborated, as a teacher and tutor, with various chairs at the University of Palermo.
Forza #Italia!
by Marco Landi and Roberto Angotti
