After the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB), the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and its event and commercial arm World Table Tennis, all expressed their desire to seek ways for a positive new start to their cooperation, the parties have agreed on the following clarifications and statements:

The DTTB welcomes the ITTF’s efforts to build a tournament series with the development of World Table Tennis, which it too hopes will make table tennis stronger in global competition with other sports and lead it successfully into the future. In January 2021, the DTTB has declared that after PricewaterhouseCoopers had confirmed the legality of World Table Tennis’s incorporation process around the master licence agreement, it considered its questions in this regard settled.

As one of the federations that have at all times worked to improve the presentation of our sport, the DTTB supports the ITTF’s belief that table tennis must be presented and marketed at a new level.

In the field of international events, the DTTB has been an essential partner of the ITTF for decades, regularly hosting world championships and major tournaments. It has built its national leagues and youth tournaments, its schedules, its federation structures and also the core of its funding on these international activities in high-performance sports.

However, the establishment of World Table Tennis, and the far-reaching change of the ITTF tournament series, meant for the DTTB there were uncertainties for the future and, above all, concerns about its financial stability.

Because the DTTB felt that it had not received conclusive information on important details of the World Table Tennis planning during the critical months despite multiple requests and did not feel involved in the planning of World Table Tennis, the DTTB decided to write the letter of 18-NOV-2020.

This letter was formulated emotionally and aggressively under the circumstances prevailing at the time.

In order to facilitate a peaceful resolution between the parties, the DTTB issues the following statement regarding this letter:

The DTTB regrets the sharp tone of the letter.

The DTTB regrets that it sent the letter of 18-NOV-2020 to all members of the ITTF but did not first give it to the Executive Committee of the ITTF as the responsible governing body for comment.

The DTTB also regrets that the criticism in this letter also highlighted individual persons. The DTTB would therefore like to apologize and declares its readiness to contribute to the costs of the mutually incurred litigation in an appropriate manner.

After this clarification of the DTTB, the ITTF makes the following statement:

The ITTF understands the difficult situation that arose for some member associations at that time and considers it unfortunate that whilst trying to manage the difficulties associated mainly with COVID-19 and the workload to implement this new project, they were unable to address every issue of all concerned parties.

The ITTF and World Table Tennis welcome the above clarification from the DTTB in which it supports strategic objectives of the world governing body, including the formation of World Table Tennis.

All parties now declare their willingness to resume their constructive cooperation and to end the pending proceedings, with a clear focus on the future.