Patrick Penninckx, the Head of the Information Society Department, addressed the issue of Media Freedom in Sports at the annual general assembly of the News Media Coalition on 13 October 2021. In his presentation he listed the challenges facing the sports arena such as hate speech, disinformation and fake news, access to events and related information. He also brought to attention alerts on media freedom in sports reported on the Platform for the safety of journalists and protection of journalism. He further underlined the role of the Council of Europe in promoting and defending media freedom generally and how does that relate to sport. In this context he also recalled PACE Resolution 2200 (2018) on The good governance of football and the activities of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS).

The News Media Coalition is an international not for profit organisation which works to safeguard the news sector from arbitrary controls or restrictions on newsgathering, news distribution, copyright ownership and content use. NMC Members include major publishing houses, national and news international agencies. In August 2021 the News Media Coalition applied to have Observer Status to the Council of Europe Steering Committee on Media and Information Society (CDMSI).