Birmingham, March 1 – Leading European Meetings are supporting tougher anti-doping measures. At today´s Spring Meeting of top european one-day events in Birmingham the members urged IAAF to increase the ban for serious doping offence from 2 to 4 years.

They also supported the latest EAA initiative against doping cheaters. Meeting directors agreed not to invite athletes to their events who they think will cause negative publicity to their event and to our sport. A past doping offence could be one such reason. President of Euromeetings Rajne Soderberg (Meeting Director of Stockholm´s DN Galan): „We need to support all the latest initiatives of the governing bodies. We know how harmful doping issues could be in relation to our sponsors or spectators. There is no other way, just to continue to fight. We can of course only urge our members to follow the strategy, on the other hand we must respect their individual decisions.“

Euromeetings also approved a new Constitution which is taking into account the latest changes and challenges in the sport. The members discussed also prize money and athletes contracts issues and calendar for 2008.

Elections of the board have been completed by additional two members – Gerard Fremaux (France) and Alfons Juck (Slovakia).

Euromeetings is the group of organisers of European athletics meetings. Currently there are 39 members with 50 meetings. All IAAF Golden League and Grand Prix Meetings are the members, most of the EAA Permit Meetings are members too.