Berlin to Bid
for OutGames 2009
Berlin - At
the membership meeting on Dec. 2, 2004, the members of
Games Berlin voted 16 to 4 to bid for Outgames 2009. The
Board and the Executive Directors were instructed to
gather the local, national and international support
necessary to reactivate the Outgames bid which is
currently on hold.
In October 2004 Games Berlin invited the two
international gay and lesbian sporting bodies, the
Federation of Gay Games (FGG) and the Gay and Lesbian
International Sport Association (GLISA), to meet in
Berlin for talks that would clear the path for unified
global gay and lesbian Games after the two competing
events in 2006. GLISA accepted the invitation but the
FGG declined. Similar invitations from Munich and
Washington, DC. were also rejected at the Annual Meeting
of the FGG in Cologne. Instead the FGG has announced to
organize an open-invitation conference on the future of
gay and lesbian sport in the first half of 2005, but
this is seen by Games Berlin and representatives of
other influential gay and lesbian sports bodies as a
unilateral move without any chance of actually bridging
the gap in the sports movement.
"We are
disappointed about the rejection of the negotiation
proposals and we have lost hope that the FGG is seriously
interested in moving towards unity," says Dagmar Timm,
Co-Executive Director of Games Berlin. "All offers for talks
were rejected, the site selection process for Gay Games 2010
is continuing as if nothing happened and the FGG doesn't
even mention the name GLISA in any of their letters or
releases." Dagmar Timm goes on to say: "The FGG is obviously
trying to buy time and create facts. It would have been
possible to put the site selection process during the
negotiations on hold without any problem. To date there are
only expressions of interests but no definitive letters of
intent. If the FGG is interested in unifying the sports
movement and the Games, talks need to happen first before
the bid selection process continues. With the potential
bidding organizations in mind, this would be the only
responsible move, if in fact the FGG wants unified Games.
Otherwise the bidding organizations are asked to spend a lot
of effort and money on a bid without really knowing what
they are getting themselves into and what the bid procedures
as well as the implementation of unified Games would look
like."
"The decision of the members of Games Berlin for Outgames
2009 is only the first step to reactivate the Berlin bid,"
says Robert Kastl, Co-Executive Director of Games Berlin.
The international disputes managed to divide the community
in Berlin and the mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit,
consequently withdrew his support for either Gay Games or
Outgames until the differences are settled. The financial
support for the Gay Games bid was severed. "The gay and
lesbian community has to make a clear decision now," says
Kastl, "or Berlin will not get gay and lesbian Games in the
next thirteen years. In the next few months will find out
whether such a decision can be made in the community in
Berlin and beyond." The pending decision of the European Gay
and Lesbian Sports Federation (EGLSF) in March 2005 to join
GLISA will mark a decisive point in time and send an
important signal to Berlin and the rest of the world.
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