This weekend’s European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation Annual General Assembly, held in Manchester, UK was infused with a sense of history from the start. The meeting of sports clubs from throughout our continent saw delegates from Eastern (Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria), Southern (Spain, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia), Northern (Finland, Denmark), Central (Poland, Hungary, Germany) and Western (France, Belgium, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland) Europe. The weekend began with a reception in the Manchester Museum, built in 1867, and continued with an personal welcome of all delegates by the Mayor of Manchester in the City’s beautifully ornate neo gothic Town Hall. A tour of the City’s major sports venues completed the itinerary; arenas in which sports men and women from throughout the world continue to make their own contributions to the history books.

For LGBT sports people, however, the most historic moment occurred within the Assembly itself, when the Co-Presidents of the Federation of Gay Games (FGG), Emy Ritt and Kurt Dahl and the Co-Presidents of Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association (GLISA) Julia Applegate and Wessel Van Kampen outlined a proposal for future collaboration between the two organisations, which includes the proposal to organise a joint world event in 2018.

The proposal has yet to be agreed by the Boards of both organisations, but European sports groups are hoping for a full commitment in the not too distant future. As Pepe Garcia Vazquez, male Co-President of EGLSF explains:

“Many of our member clubs have expressed a desire for a return to a single quadrennial global LGBT sport event. The joint statement received a standing ovation lasting almost two minutes at the Assembly! This surely demonstrates how important this is to our membership”

The Assembly also agreed important actions on a range of European LGBT sports development issues and saw the election of new Board members Marie Kampmann (Denmark) and Armelle Mazé (France) as well as the re-election of Treasurer Juha Meronen (Finland). Existing UK Board member Louise Englefield was elected to the position of Female Co-President. Speaking in the wake of the Joint GLISA/FGG statement, Louise said:
“I’m honoured to have been elected by the EGLSF membership to this role and I am hugely proud to join Pepe in leading the Board through this exciting period in LGBT sporting history.