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Zlatko Matesa continue to lead Croatian Olympic Committee

Xinhua, October 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

Zlatko Matesa will lead Croatian Olympic Committee (HOO) for another four years as he won a majority of votes as the only presidential candidate at HOO Assembly meeting held on Thursday in Zagreb.

Matesa is the longest serving president of Croatian Olympic Committee, at helm from 2002, and he will continue to lead state's governing sports body until 2020 even though he was under a lot of criticism for his work in recent years. Under his guidance Croatian Olympians won the record five gold and ten medals overall at 2016 Rio Olympics.

In a speech at the begging of his fourth full presidential term Matesa called for a change in Croatian sports legislative and larger financial support from the state.

"We will propose National sports program that should be a base document for the new Sports Law. We would like to see a change of position for sport under independent sports body or as a part of Ministry of tourism. We have successful examples from Poland and Thailand," Matesa said pointing out that at least five percents of income in tourism comes from sports related activities.

"We should change taxation for international sports donations and give tax exempt for companies that are willing to invest in sports," proposed the first Croatian who has earned his doctorate at Beijing Sports University in 2009.

Zlatko Matesa is also a member of the European Olympic Committees and under his guidance Croatian Olympic Committee has build strong ties with European and Asian National Olympic Committees, especially with NOC's of China and Japan. Endit