Last Friday, we published that three Serbian players are infected by the coronavirus. The article was based on the official statements issued by Pro Recco and the Serbian Water Polo Federation. We emphasized that these two announcements had been sources for our article.
On Saturday, the Hungarian water polo federation published an announcement, where they stated that Total Waterpolo is “trying to connect” the Debrecen tournament with positive COVID-19 cases in Serbian national and presenting that as “story of our lives”.
Since they haven’t responded to our request to publish a denial, we are publishing our email sent on Sunday to Hungarian water polo federation president Attila Vári and his media team.
Dear Mr. Vári,
I was unpleasantly surprised by the announcement that MVLSZ published yesterday on the official website – http://www.waterpolo.hu/hir/11257/kozlemeny/.
This level of unprofessionalism is something I could never expect from, in my humble opinion, the best organized water polo federation in the world.
Let me briefly point out all the omissions in your announcement:
The reason why I’m writing this email is because Total Waterpolo is an international brand owned by a private company. We have invested a lot of money, time, and energy to create Total Waterpolo – an independent media that delivers high-quality, objective journalism to water polo fans everywhere.
Maybe people at your organization (who wrote and made a decision to publish this announcement) don’t understand that they are directly impacting our business and reputation, but their ignorance does not dispute their responsibility.
Following the above, we expect you to publish a denial of the disputed announcement containing an apology to Total Waterpolo and our employees, at the latest on Monday, 18th January 2020.
Otherwise, we will be forced to take all necessary action to protect our brand reputation and our media rights of freedom of expression and freedom of information in the EU.
I sincerely hope that all this was a reckless move by an individual and that in the future we will have the opportunity to communicate on much more positive and constructive topics.
All the best and take care,
Marko Štefanek