Cristian Zaharia and Bogdan Pasat, two key Board Members of the American Team Handball Association (ATHA), have resigned from their ATHA Board positions. The move was made shortly after the 2nd USOC open hearing to discuss the ATHA’s and Utah Team Handball Foundation (UTHF) proposals to become the National Governing Body (NGB) for Team Handball in the United States.
According to Bogdan Pasat, the move was made as a result of ATHA Board Chairman,Mariusz Wartalowicz’s failure to properly emphasize ATHA’s willingness to work openly with all elements of the American Handball community. This directly conflicted with an earlier ATHA Board decision that was essentially deigned to give notice to the USOC and the UTHF, that the ATHA would not only work with the UTHF but it would also consider absorbing it for the sake of team handball development.
Bogdan Pasat Note on Houston Website: http://houstonhandball.org/comment.php?comment.news.613
Analysis: With two of the three board members who were physically present at the USOC open hearings resigning the ATHA bid is in an untenable position. The USOC can only conclude that the ATHA is not ready to manage the sport effectively if it can be openly split by internal politics in the middle of a competitive bidding process. The USOC’s decision is now to simply determine whether the UTHF bid is acceptable or not.
As the current ATHA President, I still stand behind what I said and did not say during 2nd Public Hearing. Yes, I did not say word by word what the ATHA’s Board of Directors “resolution” called for because I personally disagreed with several sentences that the resolution consisted of. I went to Colorado Springs to present the ATHA vision, mission and business plan for handball development. I refused to play politics for the sake of “strategic positioning” to win the bid. I did want and still do the substance and merit to do the talking. I despise double standard and making statements that mean nothing and I do not have intention to follow through. If you either attended the hearing in person or through the conference call or listened to the audio script available from the USOC, hopefully you will be able to make an objective judgment regarding ATHA’s willingness to work with all constituencies including the UTHF. Also, both Board Members of ATHA who decided to resign, had an opportunity to speak-up during the hearing, make their voice heard and correct me if and when necessary. To the contrary, they neither read nor said anything even remotely close to their original proposed statement and I still wonder why.
As far as your analysis, for the first time I have to not only disagree with you but also challenge your objectivity in this particular piece of writing in light of your generally unbiased way of reporting and commenting on handball happenings in the US. Yes, two ATHA Board Members decided to leave but it does not mean that we either lost or quit our quest to become the NGB for handball. I would like to refer you to page 5 of the ATHA’s Development Plan where we define our strategy as “First who… then what?”
Further, as the proverb says that no man is an island, we already found several appropriate independent candidates to take over those vacant seats. This is just a beginning. Further, please leave the final conclusions to the USOC unless you know already what they decided. If that is the case, I think all of us would love to know it too. Finally, your article omits completely the subject of UTHF’s presentation. What a pity!
Should you or any of your readers have any questions regarding this matter and/or any other ATHA related subject, please feel free to contact me or any of Board Members at any time.
Regards,
Mariusz Wartalowicz
ATHA, President
I titled the last paragraph “analysis” to differentiate the factual reporting of the first two paragraphs with my analysis of what I think it means. It’s my opinion, that the ATHA bid is now in an untenable position and has little chance, if any, of being selected by the USOC. Of course, I could be wrong and the USOC will indeed be the decision maker.