Costa Rica will become the first Central American country to stage the online meeting of the organisation’s Executive Committee.

Scheduled to start tomorrow, the Forum is expected to last three days and highlight how universities and students have responded to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have 25 countries and 500 participants," said Rosaura Méndez, executive director of the FISU America Forum and member of the FISU Executive Committee.

"Costa Rica feels very satisfied to be able to unite the community and the family of continental university sport and beyond because we will have European and African representatives in the participation.

"This is a meeting to continue strengthening sports in the region, but above all to indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic does not defeat university sports.

"We are also very pleased with the number of university students who have registered because they are really the future and we must work hand in hand to make all the proposals and proposals for new policies and actions for the development of university sports."

Lectures are expected to cover topics such as well-being, physical and mental health, social co-operation, leadership, volunteering and gender equality in sports.

The importance of female leadership in sport is also set to be emphasised as well as academic exchange between countries and sport as a social transformer.

The topics of the programme are aimed at students, athletes, teachers, coaches, instructors, referees, sports leaders, organisations and sports promoters.

The FISU America 2020 Forum is the preamble to the World Forum which is expected to bring together more than 400 people and is scheduled to take place in April 2022.

Cartago in Costa Rica has been selected as the host for the meeting after FISU stripped Kyiv in Ukraine of the hosting rights.

Split in Croatia, Valencia in Spain and 2016 Olympic and Paralympic host Rio de Janeiro in Brazil were the other contenders, but the FISU Executive Committee voted unanimously for Cartago.