Experts have warned that sport must adapt as an industry to survive the pandemic, during a webinar hosted by The European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance (ESSNA) to discuss the future of sport.

ESSNA hosted the webinar entitled “Looking ahead: What preferred exit strategy for the sport sector in the aftermath of Covid-19?” on 25th June, and welcomed the following speakers and leaders in the sporting world:

– Yves Le Lostecque, Head of the Sport Unit, European Commission
– Jérôme Pero, Secretary General of the Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (FESI)
– Luca Bucchini, Managing Director of Hylobathes Consulting and ESSNA Vice-Chair
– Cliff Collins, EuropeActive Programmes Director

The line-up made many predictions as to how the sporting sector may be forced to change as a result of coronavirus and what more it can do to protect itself from future disasters.

Yves Le Lostecque, Head of the Sport Unit at the European Commission explained:
“We must wait to see the long term vision [of the future for the sporting industry] but something has definitely changed: people have discovered new ways of practising sport at home. This is positive. The challenge is how to ensure this change is not detrimental to the sporting organisations which we must continue to support.”

Jérôme Pero, Secretary General of the Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (FESI), said:
“We have all learned a lot of important lessons [from the pandemic]. We need to continue to adapt as an industry. The new normal is only temporary. We need to work better together across Europe to harmonize and combat widespread panic… As our work / home balance is shifting, so too are sport demands changing.”

Luca Bucchini, Managing Director of Hylobathes Consulting and ESSNA Vice-Chair, said:
“The perception of sport will not change in the long-term. Social media has been effective in terms of facilitating training at home. However, we should be under no illusion that social media can replace sporting events. We must at some stage go back to the physical world when it’s safe to do so.”

Cliff Collins, EuropeActive Programmes Director, commented:
“We must convince political figures that the sporting industry can be trusted to return in a safe and responsible way. People simply playing sports again does not mark the end of our coronavirus journey. We must utilise digital technologies to help shape a safe future for sports experiences and we must work with other sectors to demonstrate the holistic worth of sporting.”


For more information, please contact Laura Coryton via [email protected], 07505038602

About the European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance

The European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance is an alliance of European and North American sports nutrition companies that was formed in December 2003.

A full list of members of the Alliance can be found on the website: https://www.essna.com/members/

www.essna.com.

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