"Recognising the significance of our upcoming elections at the Annual General Meeting, the Integrity Unit has proactively engaged leading professional support specialized in the sector to act as Integrity Officers to ensure that compliance and enforcement measures, including inquiries, are delivered effectively, efficiently and transparently."
Kevin Carpenter, ITTF Head of Integrity, 26 May 2025
Everything is ready for the final big step onto the podium. Khalil Al-Mohannadi is hosting the World Championships and the ITTF Convention in Doha. On Sunday, the final day of the World Championships, he celebrated his 64th birthday. Tomorrow, Tuesday, he finally wants to become ITTF President – after a quarter of a century on the Executive Board and in various vice-presidential positions.
There was only one three-year break in his ITTF career, because Al-Mohannadi allegedly attempted to buy votes at the election congress in Shanghai in May 2005. At least, that is what the ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) suggests.
CAS decision 2005/A/996
"Furthermore, it was found above that due to bribery and other irregularities having occurred during the ballot for the election of the Deputy Chairman at the ITTF's May 2005 AGM, such election contravenes both the ITTF's Constitution and Swiss mandatory law prohibiting acts contra bones mores as defined under article 20 of the Swiss code of obligation."
CAS, 9 Februar 2006
More on that in a moment.
In Doha, Al-Mohannadi, who is also president of the Qatar Table Tennis Association (QTTA) and the Asian Table Tennis Union (ATTU), is said to have been walking around on his birthday on Sunday telling delegates that he would not give up, that he would fight, and that he saw no reason to withdraw so close to his big goal. This is what several witnesses on site reported.
Last Wednesday, SPORT & POLITICS reported exclusively on the arrest and deportation of Swiss official Georg Silberschmidt. This could have been an act of revenge by Al-Mohannadi after Silberschmidt accused him of foul play four years ago.
Jens Weinreich
Among other things, it stated:
Georg Silberschmidt, who once compiled material on the activities of the current presidential candidate Khalil Al-Mohannadi (together with top players who founded the new players' association), was not allowed into the table tennis hall on Monday. He wanted to distribute material from the new United Table Tennis Players Association (UTTP), which includes several stars, together with colleagues.
Security forces intervened and alerted the police. Silberschmidt was arrested and spent 24 hours in custody. He was only released thanks to the intervention of political and diplomatic authorities (the Swiss Federal Council, the Qatari ambassador to Switzerland and the Swiss ambassador to Qatar) and the efforts of ITTF President Petra Sörling. He had been threatened with several years in prison.
The fact that Silberschmidt's son Andri sits in the National Council, the lower house of the Swiss parliament, for the FDP did not hurt the political mediation efforts.
On Wednesday morning, Silberschmidt landed safely in Zurich. He was ‘extremely lucky,’ Silberschmidt told me. He did not want to go into details for the time being.
On Sunday, the New York Times also reported on this incident:
Al-Mohannadi did not respond to inquiries from the NYT. Of course, he also did not respond to my inquiry last week.
What happened in Yokohama in 2009?
In addition to Georg Silberschmidt's arrest, I had questioned Al-Mohannadi and the ITTF about events during the 2009 World Championships in Yokohama.
