The Paralympic Initiative

 Today, I was inspired... Today I have had a breathtaking experience of the human body progression, stability and sustainability. And not only that! Today I saw the real importance of the Trust factor between two motivated friends, two incredible personas.

Meet Fausto and Javier, my two new heroes with their passion for sport. "Do not give up" is their moto. Javier (on the right) is a cyclist, an extraordinary one.  He cycles because he loves to do it and the fact that he does not see nothing at all, also does not scares him at no point. Why Javier has no fear!? The main reason and answer to that question is Fausto (on the left), he is his communication support at all times while he is on the road. Communicating through radio and an earphone, makes their work looking simple and at no cost. However, what remains hidden is the strong will, the hard trainings and the trust those two incredible personas have built up during years of friendship.

What Fausto and Javier aim at today is to raise international awareness of what they are able to do (Video). Tandem cycling is what is practiced today at the Paralympics competition, so basically the communicator (as mentioned earlier) is cycling at the back of the duo. Fausto and Javier want to take that to the next level.  It sounds harder, it looks riskier, and it is in two words more complicated, but the Mexican duo showed today that it is certainly not impossible and it is definitely bringing the adrenaline back to the body soul of a sport's person. 

Today, 4th September 2012, Fausto and Javier left few dozens of children inspired by what two incredible personas can do with motivation, strong will and hard work. Today the Paralympic Initiative is "Do not to give up"... Never!

Good Night Euro2012

Good Night Euro 2012. It has been a pleasure since the start. And it feels like yesterday when I woke up with the Good Morning Euro 2012. It has been a privilege to watch all the 19 match days, full of excitement, passion and grace. But now it is over.

Congratulations to the winner Spain - the Record Breaker. Spain has been crowned for the third time as European champions, winning the last one with pace and skills by the glory team. Three records have been broken tonight: 1) Spain is the first team to win three times in a row in three big football tournaments: Euro champions in 2008 (Austria and Switzerland), World champions in 2010 (South Africa) and again Euro champions in 2012 (Poland and Ukraine).  2) Spain are also the first team to defend their previously won Euro title. 3) And finally Spain are the first team to score more than 3 goals in a final game, securing their 4:0 win over Italy.

Bravo Spain, it has been a real pleasure to watch your games, and not only yours. The whole tournament was an amazing experience. It made me think how a simple game such is the football, brings countries together. Some people leave disappointed when others celebrate, and it does not matter if your nation is playing in the tournament. An individual, whose country could not qualify, would always pick a team to support and will cheer like it is his or hers team. This is something special.

Good Night Euro 2012.. and Thank You!!

Why NGOs or charity-like organisations' reputation decline?

Friday, 28th July, was one of the rarely nice days in London. Warm and sunny, the day was partially spent with a friend, a colleague from the university, around the Olympic Park in Stratford. Sharing moments and thoughts for life, just before we set apart to each others next destination we have witnessed WWF volunteers raising awareness of a cause. 

The World Wildlife Federation is the world's leading independent conservation body, which is passionate about: safeguarding the natural world; tackling the urgent threat of climate change (Earth Hour); and sustainability - change the way we live.

However, the aim and the set objectives of such organisations are difficult to manage from the moment they start becoming big in numbers of personnel . When me and my friend saw the group of young people under the flag of WWF, I was stunned with the way they were trying to raise awareness of their cause: Safe The Tiger. Let me clarify it slightly. In a team seemingly to be a group of 5-6 young people, there was only one (let's code name her Ranger665) that I saw, she was the only one working with passion and trying to explain the purpose of their appearance among endless crowd. On the contrary, two of the representatives, one of which was supposedly the supervisor or the team leader (NOT!) were all the time simply talking to each other. Where is the purpose in that? Yet, there was another one, walking like an Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting. Many people, I observed, were passing by her  with a strange look on their faces once she was about to approach them, perhaps also asking themselves various types of questions. And there were two more, which could not be seen clearly but trying to get the attention of the walkers. Nevertheless, the purpose of the volunteers was to get peoples attention about their cause. It was simply to send a short message to number 70800 with a text Ranger, which was indeed a bit expensive for a message, 5 GBP, but neglecting previously mentioned behaviour of the representatives, the purpose served a good cause: Safe The Tiger.

Personally, I am for world unity and harmony. I am for nature and sustainability. I like the causes of WWF and the initiative that has become a global movement today: Earth Hour. Nevertheless, these causes are being neglected by the staff, employees, volunteers, which as a stakeholder group are the most valuable asset in organisational reputation building. In a case like WWF, which is a Global and Big organisation, such representatives like the ones stated earlier, would only jeopardise the ultimate goal: “people living in harmony with nature” and create the wrong impression in the society, which would rather push back peoples willingness to help. However, people would help, but only if they see serious behaviour of the organisation's representatives.

Good morning Euro2012

Friday, 8th May, 2012 starts the European Football Championship where 16 'best' national teams of Europe will compete for the honour of being crown as champions on the continent. The countries of Poland and Ukraine are the hosts and the opening starts in just a few hours from now at 1700 GMT. 

Such a large tournament has been given to developed and developing countries in order to promote the one thing that gathers people around Europe and the Globe. Football is the representative of human connection, promoting nothing else but FairPlay, equality, respect, and passion for the sport. 

Nevertheless, one of the issues that has risen around the event is racism. Moreover, the misunderstanding of the concept of the European Football Championship has been spread around. Just to make it clear, football tournaments as representatives of equality have been created not only to increase profit but also to rebuild what has been broken, or to build on what has been achieved. This is why, in order to win against racism, people must show integrity, understanding and will, and most of all appearance in the host countries so that humanity could have the opportunity to rise above once again.

This is why let's have a wonderful European Football Championship and start rebuilding, then building on. 

Let the best in football skills team within FairPlay wins.

Juventus Back On Top Of Italia

Juventus F.C. has found its place back on top of Italia Seria A (video1).

Five seasons needed to pass before Juventus has found its place on top of the rock, once again. The 'Old Lady', as most know it worldwide, has been crowned again. 37 games undefeated, pressure, history, and finally the place where it belongs to!! Fans are celebrating in Italy on the stadium, streets and possibly internationally at home (video2). The only question that has to be answered now is: 28th or 30th title for Juventus will that be!?

Forza Grande Juve!!
Grazie Ragazzi!! 

Why PR consultants need to get involved in football clubs and associations?

England, one of the developed countries in the world, a great empire in the past that has inherited the planet with the universal language for communication has also introduced the most popular game - football. Nowadays, the country is mostly famous because of having the best football league on Earth, of course some may argue that. Without loosing a word on further description, recently FA (Football Association) has been on the hot spot for two decisions that has influenced the clubs' and national teams. One was the 8 week ban that Luis Suarez (Liverpool forward) have taken for racist behaviour towards Patrice Evra (Manchester United defender) and second was John Terry (Chelsea defender) who has been stripped off his English national team captaincy, accused of the same matter.

Suarez who has accepted and paid for what he calls 'not an insult' and backed by Poyet (another footballer) who admits that "it is not an offence" in Spain. Evra, who has previously been proven to be rude and offensive to other players, has also been found to be the victim in this case (for more information on the story click on: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th article). Briefly, Saturday's game Man U vs Liverpool, has created disorder in the Premier League, when Suarez came back and missed to shake Evra's hand at the very beginning of the game. That behaviour has been framed 'a disgrace for Liverpool' by Sir Alex Ferguson (Man U's manager). Nevertheless, Sir Alex has stated after the win (2:1 for the Red Devils) that Suarez could have caused riots. Some may say, Man U manager is right because of his long-term positive reputation but others may argue that he is a diplomatic person who should not put additional pressure on the situation and instead Liverpool's player who could cause an incident, Ferguson with his statement might be the one to cause riots.

Leaving the club football and its crises on a side, for the moment, the National team of England has taken a hit a couple of days before the derby between Man U and Liverpool. Due to FA's decision not to allow John Terry to be the captain of England anymore, has made Fabio Capello resign as the national team's manager. In brief recall, England has always had strong football players and has always been named to be one of the favourites for the FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Cup winner. However, scandals has always appeared, few months before each major competition, which has somehow affected the players' performance. Now, when around the corner is Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, England has lost its manager due to disagreement between him and the FA (for more info on the story click on: 1st, 2nd and 3rd article). Some may say in support for the Football Association that letting Capello resign has been a good and ethical decision. Nevertheless, others may argue that the FA has failed to support the national team by simply make an exception for the Euro and strip Terry off his captaincy after the conclusion of it. In support to the argument, now England should find a phenomenal manager, who will turn around the English national team in just few months and adapt the players to a new style of play and tactics in order to perform well in the competition. Coming back to the history, miracles have happened before when the national team of Denmark has gathered its players from summer resorts and have won the 1992 Euro Cup. Will this phenomena happen to the English football team, spectators, followers and fans will be awaiting to see.

Coming to an end, why in both cases PR practitioners/consultants are needed. In order to avoid further misunderstandings and/or stunt PR such as Evra's and Suarez's disgraceful behaviour for the club's football and the break down of the English national team just before a major event, public relations could have its word. Consultants will be able to take care of the reputation of the clubs by introducing the English laws (racism wise) to the players and give a brief communication advice on how and what to talk during interviews. Moreover, controversial decision could also be avoided by drawing on previous facts and history, which rather help in critical situations like racism accusation to take over. Early sincere apology from both players could have also be an easy solution that will calm down the already escalating negativism amongst clubs' and national team fans. However, there is a possibility that FA could have taken the right decision, and all of what have been said will turn from arguments to just words. 

What a weekend.. Or need it to be named distribution of happiness!?

What a weekend.. Or need it to be named distribution of happiness!?

Starting from last night's NFL final, also known as SuperBowl, NY Giants have discretely destroyed New England Patriots with an end result of 21-17 in favour to New Yorkers winning the 46th competition since its existence.. Happiness on one side and sadness on the other, have brought a dramatic 3 hours sport event to the world watched by hundreds of millions people globally. Even the social media has benefited from it: Twitter registered 1.8 billion tweets for the last 3 minutes of SuperBowl's streaming.

While in the United States that is an annual special event, in the United Kingdom and more specifically in London, hours earlier, citizens have witnessed the crowning of a Royal borough. Greenwich, situated in South-East English capital is the region that will host several of the summer Olympics' events later in 2012: football, basketball, gymnastics, equestrian, etc. Concluding with fireworks in one of the University's of Greenwich grass fields, happiness remained on the faces of the people.

Nevertheless, and most importantly pure happiness has been distributed in the early hours of Sunday. Saturday night snow has come to London, and without a moment of hesitation students at Avery Hill, one of the University of Greenwich campuses, have turn it into a memorable moment. The whole area had an excess of snow and so were the snow-ball fights. The next day.. well.. that was the Sunday crowned 'the day full of pure happiness'. Children with their parents, families, have used the local parks to enjoy the already covered with snow land. The snowball fights have turned into building snowman's competition, each ones aiming for bigger and/or funnier.

A simple day, has started with preparation for uniqueness moving from snowing towards crowning and finally spectating. From unexpected to planned, this is how a perfect day for pure happiness has been built.

What a weekend..!?