Announcement on Glue

ENGLISH TABLE TENNIS ASSOCIATION Limited

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                                                                                 TN34 1HF

5th June 2007
Ref: 922/RHS/DMN

To: The General Secretary of every Local League, County Association, Premier
Clubs, Regional Chairman and Coaching Coordinators, Organisations in Good
Standing and ETTA Staff.


Dear Member,
Announcement by ITTF on glue.

An announcement regarding glue has been made by the ITTF following a Board of Directors Meeting in Zagreb on 26thMay 2007, which has been published on the ETTA website.  The Board of Directors of the ITTF felt that current levels of Volatile Compounds in glues are in very small quantities and if applied correctly in a ventilated area provide no serious health risk to the players, but they also felt that the long term use of such glues may have negative health effects.
This followed a suspected case in Japan of a player who became seriously ill whilst applying glue to his racket albeit the medical report did state that the disease the player had is affected by other factors such as constitution and health conditions and requested that people avoid repeating the same accident.

For clarity here are the facts:

1. ITTF, as of immediate effect, advises all players to cease using glues containing volatile compounds (VC's). It is the responsibility of the players and parents using such glues at their own risk.
2. All existing ITTF approvals of glues are withdrawn effective immediately.
3. ITTF will cease to approve any type of glues effective immediately.
4. ITTF will ultimately publish and circulate a list of available Glues that are free of volatile compounds and update this list on a regular basis.
5. For the time being rackets will continue to be tested in ITTF Events by the
present method, to ensure that they do not contain more than a specified level of harmful volatile solvents.
6. From 1 January 2008 for ITTF junior events and from 1 September 2008 for all other ITTF events, ITTF will introduce an improved "zero tolerance" method of testing and a player whose racket contains any trace of such solvents will be
liable to immediate disqualification and will be reported to his or her Association
for possible further disciplinary action.
7. If a proven health incident occurs and is confirmed by a medical authority
approved by ITTF the new testing programme will commence immediately from
the date of confirmation of the incident.
8. The ITTF urges all parties involved in our sport to act accordingly.

As the National Governing Body for our sport in England, it is the opinion of the Directors and Management of ETTA that we must follow this announcement and lead from the ITTF. If not, we are failing to honour our obligation in respect of our "Duty of Care" to our membership.

It is also our recommendation to all officials and administrators from Club, Local League, County Association and National Levels to pass on this information to their players and act accordingly.

The "policing" of this, in ETTA approved events from 1st January 2008 for Junior Events and 1st September 2008 for Senior Events, will indeed be very difficult, but the ETTA will do everything in its power to assist the organising bodies. For those events run directly by the ETTA we will follow the ITTF lead and will be purchasing the necessary testing equipment to ensure compliance with the new regulations.

The responsibility clearly is in the hands of the players and, in the case of under 18s, their parents, in addition to the officials, to ensure that this message reaches and is understood by the table tennis fraternity.

Discussions will take place with regard to the "gluing areas" at events and I hope the need for these will disappear in the future.

ETTA will include a condition of entry acceptance in its events at all levels of item 1 mentioned above.

This may be perceived by some as too much legislation and control, however, all administrators of our sport have a clear responsibility to the players and officials to advise of the concerns raised and take the necessary actions to prevent any potential harm to these players and officials.

The longer term will result in no glues being available from the table tennis
manufacturers with harmful volatile compounds and it is hoped that with this and the testing, that this whole matter will result in a better and "cleaner" and more environmentally safe sport.


Regards

Alex Murdoch
ETTA Chairman