Our Blog

“Dual Career from Education to Work: Human Right of the Sportsperson”

Zoom Meeting February 27, 2023 (from 12:00 CET)

12:00 Welcome

Prof. Antonio Tessitore, PhD – University of Rome Foro Italico, and Chair of the EAS Scientific Committee.

12:10 – Köle Gjeloshaj, PhD: “Dual career of athletes at the International sports organizations”

Vice-President of the Panathlon Wallonie-Bruxeles, Belgium and strategic coordinator of the president of the European Fair-Play Movement, Scientific Collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, dr. Gjeloshaj worked from 1996 to 2017 at the International University Sports Federation (FISU), for which he set up the educational and development departments as Director of the Educational department. He joined the International School Sport Federation (ISF) in 2018, where he covered the position of Deputy Secretary General until 2022. He is now a civil servant within the Federation Wallonie Bruxelles as coordinator of the logistical team for the Belgium Presidency of the EU in 2024 of the International Relations Department. Dr. Gjeloshaj was the team leader for FISU of the Proclamation by UNESCO (2015) of the International Day of University Sport. The Co-rapporteur (2021-22) of the High Level Group on Gender Equality in Sport of the European Commission. From 2020 to 2022, he chaired the Consultative Committee of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport of the Council of Europe. He is an alumni of ULB (Political sciences) and the University of Pisa (Anti mafia and corruption).

12:35 – Giovanni Di Cola, PhD: “Rights and obligations and dual career of professional athletes”

Dr. Giovanni Di Cola has a wide experience within the United Nations System, having served in various UN agencies (UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, and ILO) with assignments at the UN Staff College and the UN Secretariat, on matters related to the UN reform, Youth leadership and Sport for Development and Peace. He contributed to establish a network of 150 universities, on local economic development as ILO inter-regional programme (Universitas) coordinator between 2001 and 2008 based in Geneva. Since 2016, he was instrumental in establishing the multistakeholder initiative as Centre for Sport and Human Rights in 2021, to which he ensured that ILO could be represented as founding member and permanent observer. He was lead expert of the ILO Global Forum on Decent work in the world of sport of January 2020, in which the ILO Points of Consensus were adopted.

13:00  – General discussions and concluding Remarks