17 Sep 2019
Doha, 17 September 2019. Aspire Academy School Principal Jassem Al-Jaber was invited to participated in a high-profile panel discussion on “Championing Sport Integrity on the Field of Play” on the first day of the SIGA Inter-regional Summit, hosted in Doha on September 16th and 17th at Marsa Malaz Kempinski, on the topic “Sport Integrity – The Power of Collective Action in the Middle East, Asia and Africa”.
During the discussion with Hani Taleb Ballan, CEO of Qatar Stars League (QSL), Salman Al-Ansari, Vice President, Qatar Sports Arbitration Foundation (QSAF) and Rod Buckingham, Director of Security, Canadian Football League, Jassem Al-Jaber explained the philosophy of Aspire Academy and how they try to teach certain values to the student-athletes, so they are going to show integrity in whatever they do on and off the pitch. An exemplary behavior that has been shown by many athletes developed at Aspire.
Besides talking about the pride of the Academy in their graduates after winning the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, he also gave a great example, where a student-athlete showed a high level of integrity: At the 2014 Arab table tennis team championships, Aspire-athlete Mohammed Khamis played a very close game in the semi-finals. When the score was 10-10 in the first set, Mohammed served, his opponent was unable to return the ball and the referee awarded the Qatari the point. But the ball had first come into contact with Mohammed’s shirt. He immediately admitted his mistake, the point went to Saudi Arabia, and consequently the set and the match.
Organized by the Sports Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), the summit is co-hosted by the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and Qatar Airways, under the patronage of the Minister of Culture and Sports, H. E. Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali. The conference is an occasion to discuss a number of important topics with experts and specialists in sport integrity from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The meeting also aims to highlight the gravity of corruption in sport in the region and to develop solutions by encouraging countries to adopt SIGA’s international standard legislation.