The meeting held in Qatar was hosted to the highest level by Mr Khalil AL-MOHANNADI, the ITTF Deputy President and President of the Qatar Table Tennis Association.

The agenda of the meeting was to develop and conceptualize plans for 2018 and beyond, with a particular focus on developing the strategy for the 2021 commercial rights cycle.

This comes after the ground-breaking signing ceremony between ITTF and SportsMaster in Singapore on 2 July 2018, which will see the unification of the ITTF World Tour, TTX (Table Tennis X), World Veterans Tour and T2APAC League, under ITTF’s new professional platform, together with the institutional platforms, of which the World Championships is the key pillar.

The meeting was chaired by ITTF President Thomas WEIKERT and started off with ITTF CEO Steve DAINTON giving an update on the above future platforms, with a particular emphasis on the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships, which will be expanded significantly from 2021.

The Future Events Working Group will now start working on the criteria and stages to reach the World Table Tennis Championships Finals.

ITTF Management discussed the presentation and format of the World Table Tennis Championships Finals, which will be a huge show for table tennis. Additional staffing was discussed, with the ITTF currently on the biggest recruitment drive in its history as it looks to professionalise further.

The Management Team also moved forward with new methods of internal operations and procedures, which will streamline communication and further enhance ITTF’s workflow. The Management team were also updated on ITTF’s competition calendar and events, future high performance and development initiatives, finances, budgeting, and the ITTF Foundation.

The next ITTF Management Team meeting will be held in Singapore during September 2018.