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Mr Tommy Sithole

Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe pair of Tommy Sithole and Tyrone Seward continue to scale new heights after they became members of a Global E-Sports Federation launched on Monday in Singapore.

Mr Seward

According to reports from Singapore, the global governing body for e-sports is hoping to marry the fast-growing modern sport with Olympic values often tied to traditional ones.

The federation will be led by Singapore National Olympic Council secretary-general Chris Chan.

The organisation boasts the diversity of its board members’ countries, like Argentina, Azerbaijan, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe, which is represented by Sithole and Seward.

A veteran sports administrator and journalist, Sithole has worked with the International Olympic Committee before.

In the last three years, he has been representing the international sports community at the United Nations as director and deputy representative at IOC Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York.

He also has served three four-year terms as secretary-general of the Association of National Olympic Committee of Africa.

Sithole was appointed Zimbabwe Newspapers Group board chairperson in August.
Seward is husband to Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister, Kirsty Coventry.

According to esportinsider.com, the new global governing body was launched with the backing of Chinese multinational conglomerate Tencent.

Encompassing the entire esports ecosystem, the new body aims to govern players’ organisatios, commercial partners and more.
The GEF’s first five objectives going forward were set out as follows:

• Encourage and support the establishment of National Esports Federations with a set of relevant standards, guidelines, and regulations
• Establish an athlete commission, with a focus on athlete well-being, development of standards for fair play, career support, and education to ensure safe, doping free, and ethically compliant practices
• Convene and stage esports competitions, conventions, fora, and development programmes
• Development of world-class governance structures and guidelines for the Global e-Sports Federation
• Create, develop, and stage the annual flagship Global e-Sports Games, with the first Games to be staged in 2020

The Global Esports Federation also confirmed that membership to the federation is open to sports organisations (including international and national federations), commercial organisations (including publishers, developers, sponsors and event organisers), and non-commercial organisations (including cities and other non-governmental organisations).

e-Sports has continued strong growth in China and other parts of the world over recent years.

Newzoo predicts the global esports market is likely to reach US$1,8-3,2 billion in 2022, with an audience scale of 454 million (15 percent increase year-on-year).

It also predicts China will become the second-largest market in the world in 2019, surpassing Western Europe and just below North America.