CISM President's season greetings

FONTAINEBLEAU (FRA) - Dear CISM Family, Members, as you know, since the start of 2020, the world has changed and has had to face to the Coronavirus pandemic. Today, almost all countries across the globe are still concerned by this virus. This is a battle against an invisible enemy that destroys lives and damages the economies of many states.

Since the start of the pandemic, the CISM has demonstrated its ability to adapt to changes in the health situation. Thanks to our solidarity, the CISM was also able to rely on its efficient organization to take the best possible decisions.

Confronted with this exceptional situation, I decided to meet, from the 1st of April, and four times since then, the Emergency Committee to respond to the evolution of the fast spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. Each vice president was in contact with the countries of his continent in order to share information and to be as close as possible to their concerns, their needs. After each meeting of the emergency committee, the report was sent to the CISM family in order to share all decisions in full transparency.  CISM has faced these challenges and taken the essential emergency action to ensure the safety of our athletes, sporting events and statutory events but also to project ourselves in the future towards 2021 and 2022.

I would like to sincerely thank all of you for your unfailing support during this period where we have demonstrated our collective strength and unity in service of CISM. At this point, it seems difficult to predict the evolution of the global sanitary situation and anticipate its consequences. The global situation will gain clarity and improve once a vaccine has been distributed across the world.

Until that moment, our collective responsibility is to safeguard the health of the soldiers of our countries by adapting our sporting practices and innovating in order to ensure that CISM will continue to function and fulfil its missions. Our final victory will also require patience and wisdom, but also to strengthen our dialogue and exchanges in order to be as close as possible to the realities of each of our member countries. Since its creation, CISM has always demonstrated its resilience. It has overcome each and every challenge and preserved its unity around its motto ‘Friendship through Sport’.

Today, together, in the middle of the storm, we must hold our course and stay true to our military values of the brotherhood of arms. We need to continuously maintain and develop the friendly relationships between the representatives of the Armed Forces, but also promote the universality and diversity of CISM. We must pursue this dynamic in order to broadcast our values of peace to a world that grows only more uncertain. Afterwards, our values of solidarity and mutual assistance find sense in the support of our wounded soldiers and their families.

It is fundamentally necessary to integrate and reinforce the presence of sport as a tool in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of our soldiers who suffer physical and invisible, psychological injuries. It is important to continue reinforcing the relations between military sport and international civilian sport. This partnership is a key component in the History of Sport because of the support of the Armed Forces to the athletes and the organisation of large international sporting events.

Finally, I am convinced of the success of our strategy due to our collective spirit based on friendship and the desire to adhere and preserve the military values of CISM. I would like to thank you for your daily commitment in each of your respective countries to uphold the values of CISM. I wish you a happy New Year with your family and friends. All my best wishes for professional success and achievement. All my personal best wishes for health and happiness.

Friendship through Sport!
Colonel Hervé PICCIRILLO
CISM President