FISTF has co-opted Eliot Kennedy (AUS0007) into the role of General Secretary until the 2024 Congress,
Since the resignation of Francesco Lo Presti in October 2022, the FISTF Board has been struggling to manage the various correspondence and responsibilities of the General Secretary role, with others being forced to take these duties.
A wide-ranging campaign to find a replacement yielded no candidates, even with promotion on the FISTF social media, and direct approaches to various personalities.
The FISTF Board agreed to streamline the responsibilities of the General Secretary, and Eliot expressed a desire to take the role.
The FISTF Board was conscious of the restrictions of the Statutes, which generally preclude two members from the same MNA being on the ‘core’ board (apart from Confederation representative).
But there is a clause in the Statutes that states: Only co-opted persons may come from the same MNA or have same Nationality to warrant the functionality of FISTF within the office period.
We took this opportunity to co-opt Eliot until the 2024 Congress.
Eliot in action for Australia against Michael Kunkel (Australia v German 1991)
Eliot has been involved in table football in Australia since 1975 as a player, World Cup representative (1994, 2022), representing Australia at the Asian Cup, as well as having 13 national team caps.
Eliot Kennedy, finalist at the AGP2022 (photo by Luke Radziminski)
He has been on the Australian Table Football Association committee since 2016, and has been a member of the FISTF Editorial team, reviewing documents at the request of myself and previous Secretary Generals.
Professionally, he has worked in the area of anti-money laundering and proceeds of crime with international organisations and is now semi-retired, while still offering strategic advice in relation to the international standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) against money laundering (ML) and terrorist/proliferation financing (TF/PF).
Eliot joins an illustrious list of past General Secretaries, stretching back to the foundation:
We look forward to working with Eliot over the next 18 months and we encourage all our member nations to welcome him on board.
