The Board of the Fare network met in Rome yesterday (15 February) with the recently confirmed officer team of Raffaella Chiodo as Chairperson, Raluca Negulescu as vice-Chair and Howard Holmes as Treasurer.

The meeting approved the financial accounts for the last financial year, 2014 -2015, which will be filed under UK company law. The filing will be public and can be viewed online in the form of a profit and loss account and a balance sheet.

The meeting received reports on the work of the secretariat including updates on the anti- discrimination observer scheme with both UEFA and FIFA, a review of the 2015 Football People action weeks and discussed the future planning of initiatives with ethnic minorities, including the Roma.

The meeting also discussed in depth the issue of regulatory approaches to dealing with discrimination in football.

The Board reaffirmed the organisations commitment to supporting refugees and those working with them. It was agreed to develop an overarching strategy that could be shared publicly to help plan activities, including a campaign to overcome football rule restrictions in order to ensure the right of refugees to full participation and practice of football.

The meeting also confirmed the appointment of William Gaillard and John Olivieira as non-voting co-optees onto the Board. The other members of the Board are:

Raffaella Chiodo, Italy

Joyce Cook, UK

Howard Holmes, UK

Annie Mutema, Finland

Raluca Negulescu Romania

Rafal Pankowski, Poland

Markus Pinter, Austria

Tamara Tien, Netherlands

Aysiat Yusuf-Aromire, Finland

The next meeting will take place in May 2016