PHUKET, 28 October 2022 – As Chair of the ASEAN Sports Sector, the Department of Physical Education of the Thai Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MoTS) hosted the 13th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Sports (SOMS-13) and Related Meetings. The meetings brought together senior officials from all ASEAN Member States.
In his opening remarks, Thai Minister of Tourism and Sports and Chairperson of ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Sports, Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, stated that sport is an essential vehicle for fostering stronger people-to-people relations and engagements within ASEAN by promoting equality and accessibility to sports across genders, age groups, social status and physical conditions.
Senior officials discussed the status of the activities under the ASEAN Work Plan on Sports 2021-2025 and the operationalisation of its monitoring and evaluation framework through the Mid-Term Review.
Participants also highlighted plans to convene the First Meeting of the Technical Working Group for ASEAN’s Joint Bid for the World Cup 2034 in 2023. They also expressed that they expect the submission of the two declarations under the ASEAN Sports Sector for adoption by ASEAN Leaders at the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits as Cambodia’s 2022 ASEAN Chairmanship deliverables.
The first two declarations are the ASEAN Declaration on Leveraging the Role of Sports in ASEAN Community-Building and Achieving the SDGs and the ASEAN Declaration on Fostering ASEAN Identity through the Safeguarding of Traditional Sports and Games (TSG) in the Modern World.
Representatives from ASEAN’s partner organisations such as the ASEAN Football Federation, ASEAN Para Sports Federation, Southeast Asia Anti-Doping Organization, The Right to Play, UNESCO, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Commonwealth Secretariat, International School Federation, Portas Consulting, Féderation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and World Anti-Doping Agency participated in the open session of the SOMS-13. They updated the ongoing and forthcoming initiatives relevant to the implementation of the ASEAN Work Plan on Sports 2021-2025.
FIFA discussed priority areas in ASEAN-FIFA Collaboration Plan 2021-2022 and the new areas for the 2023-2024 Collaboration Plan including safety and security at football matches, implementation of FIFA’s Football for School (F4S) Programme in ASEAN, safeguarding of women and children, FIFA Talent Development Scheme, and possible joint activities during the FIFA U-20 World Cup Indonesia in 2023.
SOMS-13 was chaired by the Director General of Physical Education Dr. Niwat Limsuknirun.
Related Meetings held back-to-back with SOMS-13 on 27 October were the 3rd ASEAN Plus Japan Meeting on Women and Sports and the 5th ASEAN Plus Japan Senior Officials Meeting on Sports (5th SOMS+Japan). The meetings were co-chaired by Yoshitaka Hoshino, Director General of Japan Sports Agency.
The open sessions in both meetings provided updates on upcoming projects on gender equality in sports, physical education teacher education development, and benchmarking research on sports for persons with disability. The events featured experts from Juntendo University’s Japanese Center for Research on Women in Sport, Nippon Sports Science University, and Tsukuba University.
Meanwhile, the 1st ASEAN Plus China Senior Officials Meeting on Sports took place on 28 October where potential areas of sports cooperation with China was discussed. The discussions focused on three areas: people-to-people exchange, professional capacity building, and the promotion of healthy lifestyle where a consensus towards the preservation of traditional sports and games was surfaced.
Song Xueying, Deputy Director General of External Affairs Department, General Administration of Sport of China co-chaired the meeting.
