Only four positions on the Sports Council will represent the 27 sporting clubs in Xàbia

Wednesday 17th March 2021 | CARLOS LÓPEZ / translated by MIKE SMITH

The draft of the regulations of Sports Council, the consultative body for sports in Xàbia, has passed the public consultancy phase in which at least three objections have been presented. Two of them have been presented by the opposition parties (Ciudadanos and the PP) and a third has been presented by José Vicente Catalá Chorro.

The local government explained that the Sports Council was born with the idea “to advise the council and encourage the it’s sports policy to be in line with the interests of residents, to stimulate participation with debates and including their involvement in the development of strategies or lines of municipal action in the sports facilities themselves“. (See related link below.)

It will be made up of the council, a permanent commission and a secretariat that will be held by a municipal official. It is precisely the composition and representativeness where both PP and C’s, such as José Vicente Catalá Chorro have raised objections.

Specifically, the draft proposal includes that the Consell de l’Esport will have only 4 representatives of all sports clubs (37 according to the information collected on the municipal website) and 4 other prominent athletes. Along with them, apart from a member for each political party (5), and a representative of the school council from each of the educational centres of Xàbia (8, two from secondary and 6 from primary). All of them with a voice and vote.

PP: “The plenary session should be made up of one member from each club”

The PP spokesperson, Rosa Cardona, is the signatory of the objections of her party in which they consider that “the number of members of the Sports Council is not representative” since it should be made up of a member of each club and/or association sports registered and active in the municipality of Xàbia.

It is suggested that if this proposal is not accepted, “the number of members representing sports clubs and associations is greater than the number of members resulting from the sum of all representatives of each school council of each school.”

In its request, the PP considers that the clubs “are those who have knowledge and develop each sport modality in a specialized way“, and for this reason they must have the majority of the representation, proposing that the school councils of the seven centres themselves elect two representatives in the sports advisory body.

Citizens request transparency of the meetings and publish the minutes on the municipal website

For its part, the objections presented by the spokesman for Ciudadanos in Xàbia, Enrique Escrivá, proposse that the Sports Council be a transparent body. In fact, he proposes that there is a section dedicated to this advisory body on the municipal website where the minutes and meetings can be posted.

He also proposes that the Sports Council meets at least three times a year (twice a year has been proposed in the draft regulation) and that it can be convened when requested by a third of the members or one of the representatives of a group that corresponds to a sports activity.

“Participation in the preparation of the Council’s sports budget”

For his part, José Vicente Catalá Chorro, proposes that the Sports Council participate in the preparation of the budget of the Department of Sports and that it monitors it “by a rationalization of the economic resources in the form of advertising of the public water company or of direct subsidies, which the Council allocates to the clubs“.

Catalá also referred to the representation of sports bodies and proposes that only two members of the school council be integrated into the Sports Council since “in the field of school representation there is already the school council” and is committed to incorporating a representative of the elderly (for example the presidents of the two existing retiree associations in Xàbia) as well as a member of the associations of people with different capacities.

Click below to read the original article in Spanish on Xàbia AL DÍA