{"id":60714,"date":"2026-04-16T02:09:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/more-sport\/gianni-merlo-re-elected-as-international-sports-press-association-aips-president-for-sixth-and-final-term-in-landslide-victory\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:09:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:09:03","slug":"gianni-merlo-re-elected-as-international-sports-press-association-aips-president-for-sixth-and-final-term-in-landslide-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/more-sport\/gianni-merlo-re-elected-as-international-sports-press-association-aips-president-for-sixth-and-final-term-in-landslide-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Gianni Merlo re-elected as International Sports Press Association (AIPS) President for sixth and final term in landslide victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n LAUSANNE, Switzerland, April 15, 2026\/APO Group\/ —
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s Gianni Merlo will continue in his role as President of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) (www.AIPSMedia.com<\/a>)\u00a0for another four years after achieving a landslide victory over his Hungarian counterpart Zsuzsa Csisztu on 12 April, during the 88th AIPS Congress at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.<\/p>\n

Merlo secured a commanding 83 votes (76.85%) out of the 108 valid votes cast to renew his mandate for a sixth and final term. Csisztu from Hungary got 25 votes (23.15%). The only other time Merlo had an opponent in the presidential election was in 2005, when he was first elected.<\/p>\n

CONTINUITY<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI think the people have decided to continue, because the programme that I proposed is one that is looking to the future and will also help prepare the younger generations,\u201d Merlo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kenya\u2019s Evelyn Watta beat Ioannis Daras from Greece to the 1st Vice President position with an even bigger margin. The Kenyan took a whopping 99 votes (90%) out of the 110 valid votes, leaving Daras with just 11 (10%). The incumbent Esat Yilmaer from Turkey dropped out of the race prior to the election.<\/p>\n

Manuel Queiroz from Portugal was elected as the new treasurer by acclamation following the withdrawal of his opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the election for the four Vice President positions, China\u2019s Gao Chao led the way with 83.64% of the votes. He was followed by Ernesto Ortiz Gomez from Uruguay, Michal Dusik from Czechia and Estonia\u2019s Maarja V\u00e4rv.<\/p>\n

EC MEMBERS\u00a0<\/strong>And out of the 24 that were vying to be EC members, the following 12 were elected: Hiroki Shoda (Japan); Adel Alzahrani (Saudi Arabia); Morad Moutaouakkil (Morocco); Rudy Nuyens (Belgium); Predrag Milinkovic (Serbia); Jura Ozmec (Croatia); Jo\u017ee Zidar (Slovenia); Ahmed Al-Kaabi (Oman); Sabanayakan Selvakumaraswamy (India); Catalin Tepelin (Romania); Fernando N\u00fcrnberg Zambrana (Bolivia); Josef Langer (Austria).<\/p>\n

The voting members agreed that after the AIPS Secretary General has been appointed, Mohamed Ould El Hassan (Mauritania), who finished 13th in Sunday\u2019s race, will be automatically appointed to the Executive Committee.<\/p>\n

PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe plan is to improve on what we\u2019ve done until now because our association must evolve every year,\u201d said Merlo. \u201cThere is new media and many other things and it is important for us to have working groups to study the issues affecting our profession nowadays. We cannot stop now because the situation around the world is changing so quickly so we must begin to think ahead immediately. We must be in contact with the people that have a real vision of what will happen in the future to be ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case I will be a coach of a new team where we will find who will be the new striker. And I think that the team is very good and we can do a lot. It depends on the will of everybody. My first duty is to bring them together to play in the proper way with a good strategy on the field. Let’s see because from tomorrow we will begin the first meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

PRESIDENTIAL TERM LIMIT<\/strong>\u00a0Earlier in the day, the Congress had voted in favour of a presidential term limit of a maximum of 12 years but this amendment is to take effect from the next period. In another major decision taken on Sunday, members of the Executive Committee \u201cmust be no older than 75 years on January 1 of the year in which the election takes place.\u201d<\/p>\n

HONORARY MEMBERS<\/strong>\u00a0At the end of the Congress six members of the outgoing EC were recognised as Honorary Members. Esat Yilmaer (T\u00fcrkiye), Charles Camenzuli (Malta), Vicente Dattoli (Brazil), Hiroshi Takeuchi (Japan) and Amjad Mallik (Pakistan), Emanuel Fantaneanu (Romania).<\/p>\n

ELECTED AIPS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE FOR THE 2026 – 2030:<\/strong><\/p>\n

PRESIDENT<\/strong>
\nGianni Merlo (Italy)\u00a0<\/p>\n

1st VICE PRESIDENT<\/strong>
\nEvelyn Watta (Kenya)\u00a0<\/p>\n

TREASURER<\/strong>
\nManuel Queiroz (Portugal) \u00a0<\/p>\n

VICE PRESIDENT<\/strong>
\nGao Chao (China)
\nErnesto Ortiz Gomez (Uruguay)
\nMichal Dusik (Czechia)
\nMaarja V\u00e4rv (Estonia)<\/p>\n

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS<\/strong>
\nHiroki Shoda (Japan)
\nAdel Alzahrani (Saudi Arabia)
\nMorad Moutaouakkil (Morocco)
\nRudy Nuyens (Belgium)
\nPredrag Milinkovic (Serbia)
\nJura Ozmec (Croatia)
\nJo\u017ee Zidar (Slovenia)
\nAhmed Al-Kaabi (Oman)
\nSabanayakan Selvakumaraswamy (India)
\nCatalin Tepelin (Romania)
\nFernando N\u00fcrnberg Zambrana (Bolivia)\u00a0
\nJosef Langer (Austria)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, April 15, 2026\/APO Group\/ — Italy\u2019s Gianni Merlo will continue in his role as President of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) (www.AIPSMedia.com)\u00a0for another four years after achieving a landslide victory over his Hungarian counterpart Zsuzsa Csisztu on 12 April, during the 88th AIPS Congress at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Merlo secured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/8f53a00d3c624b0","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/8f53a00d3c624b0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}