Kuwait City, Kuwait, September 21, 2020: The Olympic Council of Asia's Entourage Committee held a virtual meeting on Monday under the chairmanship of IOC member Ryu Seung Min of Korea.
Committee members from India, Malaysia, Jordan, China, Iran and Turkmenistan attended the meeting along with representatives from OCA HQ in Kuwait and OCA Athletes' Committee Vice Chairman Tayyab Ikram.
One of the most important aspects of the meeting was to discuss the terms of reference of the OCA Entourage Committee regarding the scope of the committee's work.
The committee will establish a set of guidelines based on the principles of the International Olympic Committee's Athletes' Entourage Commission and with an additional Asian flavour.
At the IOC level, the Athletes' Entourage Commission has been formed to support and protect clean athletes, in particular matters concerning the relationship between athletes, parents, coaches, managers, technical officials, sponsors and media.
When the guidelines have been determined and approved by the OCA, the OCA Entourage Committee will encourage the OCA's 45 National Olympic Committees to form their own Entourage Committee to work on behalf of the athletes.
Ryu, who has been an IOC member since 2016 and is an Olympic champion in table tennis, said education played a very important role.
He pointed out that the IOC's "Athlete365" digital communication platform now had 70,000 members from 190 countries, and 30,000 of these were entourage members.
One agenda item focused on the abuse of athletes and creating awareness in Asia for members of the entourage group, and harassment in sport.
The Director of the OCA Asian Games department, Mr Haider Farman, said the OCA was ready to support Entourage Committee initiatives at the annual Regional Forums run in cooperation with the IOC's Olympic Solidarity and also in specialised workshops for the NOCs, and praised the experience and expertise of the chairman as an Olympic champion athlete and IOC member.
"It was a really fruitful meeting," said Chairman Ryu.
"I would like to thank the OCA for the full awareness of the important role of the Entourage Committee."
Ryu added that the OCA and the Olympic sports movement in Asia was in an influential position with three consecutive Olympics in the continent - the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in 2018, Tokyo 2020 and the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 - and the OCA Entourage Committee could send a powerful message to the world.