BREAKING NEWS - NEW FIFG BOARD 
 
The FIFG is delighted to announce a new board of diretors with immediate effect.
 
Javier de Ancizar will become FIFG president after the resignation of Gabor Gelencser.
 
In addition to the existing board members and new VPs Laura Balestrini (USA) and Leonardo Fernandez (Australia), additional members were selected to continue working on the several initiatives that the organization is conducting:
 
- Gaston Davio (Uruguay)
- Aleksander Kravanja (Slovenia)
- Paul Oliver (UK)
- Romuald Pretot (France)
 
We are excited for this next phase in the development of FootGolf globally and wish the best of luck to the new Board.
 
We would like to also take this opportunity to thank Gabor for his efforts over the past 18 months. The FIFG wishes him and his family the best for the future.
 

​2021 will mark the first edition of the FIFG World Champions Cup . This new international team competition will be played between champions of the previous FIFG World Cup National Team category winners.

Participation of teams will increase each time a new FIFG World Cup Team Champion is crowned. The competition is organised by the Federation for International FootGolf, the sport's global governing body.  The FIFG will be providing a new perpetual trophy for the competition which the winner will get to take home until the next round of  the champions cup. 

Format of the tournament involves the two previous team champions competing for the title at an official venue over a period of two days. The United States and France National Teams, as previous World Cup National Team Champions, will participate in the first edition and play a straight knock-out 36- hole tournament. Format of play and the number of players will be decided by the team managers and captains, then approved by their respective FIFG Member Countries.

The First competition is set to take place on the 4th and 5th of June at Reunion Resort, home of the U.S. Open 2021 in Kissimmee, Florida, United States.

#fifg #footgolfpower #worldchampionscup 

This message below was sent all the players registered in BlueGolf system by the FIFG Board of Directors.​

The Federation for International FootGolf was founded by a small group of dreamers and pioneers from different continents who started working together from scratch about a decade ago. The organisation has evolved and in the process, many passionate and dedicated people joined the FIFG founders on their journey. This brought along some people with different goals than those organisations that set the basis and put all the effort in this development. 

One of the core values of the FIFG has not and will never change; the FIFG is fully committed to its Member Countries and their affiliated players. 

We understand that different people have different views and may have other thoughts on how to develop the sport. It is also human nature to want things to move faster. These dissident organizers are unproven and a few months of organisation does not replace the years and years of dedicated work that the FIFG members have done. The FIFG is consistent. Many countries are quickly coming up on their 10 year anniversary of their organisation. These member countries started from nothing and introduced a new sport that no one had ever heard of in their country, they had to go out and explain to everyone they talked to what FootGolf was. Imagine going to a golf course who has never heard of FootGolf and telling them you want to put a 53 cm cup on their course and let people kick a soccer ball down their fairways. They also had to spend their own money to register the organisation, create the structure and work with the golf courses. They had to learn to organize a tournament, convince people to play in it and come up with money to have prizes. These countries came together under the FIFG to support each other and create a foundation to see FootGolf become a recognized sport and create the best player experience they could give. Many have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to establish the sport within their country, all because they love the sport.

One of those perhaps "normal" obstacles seen in every international organisation, movement, business enterprise, etc., is someone else claiming they can do it better. It is easier now for someone to come in and jump on top of this hard work and try and establish themselves as the new organisation within their country. But, these are not the first and we are sure will not be the last who will try. Our promise as the FIFG is that we will stay steady with our members and support them to continue to grow the sport within their country. 

Today, the FIFG Board would like to kindly invite those FootGolf lovers who are not actively working with their FIFG Member within their country, our national representatives, to reconnect and rejoin them before the end of this year, so our FIFG Member Countries can welcome everybody back under the umbrella of the FIFG and together start the Season 2021 stronger and more excited than ever and in the best interest of all of us who love "The best game ever invented". We want to have an amazing 2021 FIFG World Tour Season and the best FIFG FootGolf World Cup, yet. Please do it before January 1st, 2021 so we can start the next year together. After that date, we will continue our activities, focused on the goals of our organisation, working closer than ever with our members and their affiliated players. Would be nice to see those who may had or have differences with the FIFG Representatives in their countries, to get back "home" with those who introduced them to FootGolf and team up to continue building the structure of our sport locally but thinking globally, so that this great sport we all know can become massive sooner than later. Once again, we invite those who are no longer affiliated to our FIFG Member countries to reconnect with them "per our request" and find the way to make it work.
 
But, we also want to be clear in our message, should you decide to not rejoin with the FIFG Member in your country, you will not be able to play the World Tour. There is no white flag in the FIFG, all players play with the permission of their country organisation the FIFG Member. Just like FIFA or any other official organisation, you must be a member in order to play on their platform. Furthermore no FIFG Member Country will organise tournaments that allow players who are not part of a FIFG Member's organisation with a World Tour license.  We hope you will consider your choices carefully and rejoin the platform that gave you the opportunity to play this beautiful sport!

Since day one we see people coming and going, some stay with us for a short period of time, some stay longer and for different reasons some leave us temporarily or for good, and some are still with us, working on making the structure of the FIFG better and bigger everyday, in the best interest of our sport. We all want our young sport to become an organised and recognised sport. We can get it done faster if we work together, with one simple message and aiming to the same objective.

FIFG Board of Directors

​Almost 30 countries’ representatives joined the online meeting, which was another milestone in FootGolf history, FIFG has never held a general assembly like this.

“2020 was a unique year we have never dreamed about.” - opened the 2020 FIFG General Assembly Gábor Gelencsér, president of the Federation for International FootGolf. 

“It was clear how the 2020 year will look like with the 4th World Cup, the 2020 World Tour, Regional Tours, the possibility of new campaigns, tours and the Masters for example. The COVID-19 situation dismissed most of the plans and the FIFG Board had to rethink everything. The situation was different in every region and country, that’s why it was hard to find solutions that fit to every member.” - summarized 2020.

Gábor Gelencsér presented the yearly report then Javier de Ancizar vice-president talked about the most important part, the Constitution: 
“We have tried for several years to build our statutes, but we realized that we need professional assistance to do this, and of course resources. This year we took this as a priority and now this long process is almost done and finalized. The Board received GAISF’s comments and during a meeting with them they told us we were on the right track. Now we have to send it over to the Swiss lawyer and it can be approved by the FIFG in the next assembly. We estimate mid-January to have the final version ready to be approved by all of us.” 

Gábor Gelencsér warned the members there are a lot of pending dues. The FIFG will have a rule for that if a member is not paying its membership or licence fee saving every member’s right.

“I believe we need real partners with capital P in our members. I know there are less active members, we have to check in the next few months, but it is a long process.” added the president.

“About the rescheduled World Cup in Japan, the organizers continued to prepare the event in 2021, but in these hard days, no one could predict how our life will continue and when everything will be as it was a year before. Now it is hard to tell, how and when the World Tour can be restarted” - told us Gábor Gelencsér.

“I hope we will meet soon on the FootGolf course, but the most important is health, so please follow the national rules and hopefully, we will have a competitive and healthy 2021 season.” said the president.

The next FIFG assembly planned for the beginning of the next year.

FIFG and the sport of FootGolf have been invited for the first time ever to participate at the UTS Virtual Youth Festival 2020.

The event under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is focusing on the next generation. This event situates the FIFG closer to the IOC platform.

(photo: FootGolf Slovakia)

Almost 67% of the countries have voted for the World Tour to restart beginning of 2021.

​Furthermore, the majority of the countries require a 14-day quarantine upon arrival. Finally, there are still some countries in which FootGolf tournaments are still not allowed.

As decided a few months ago, the Regional Tours remain the same. Every region is independent and can make its own decisions regarding its tournaments. As of now Region 3 and 4 remain active.

Every single player who represented Slovakia at the latest European FootGolf Team Championships earned €1000 from the government. At the Euro FootGolf organized in the UK last year, Slovakia grabbed the bronze medal.

“We are very happy to have reached this status that the ministry has supported us. It is the first time we are in the same group with professionals like the athletes preparing for the Olympics.” told us Tomas Bartko, general secretary of SFGA, who was part of the success in 2019 also.

“It is a historical moment and not just for the Slovak athletes, but for FootGolf at all. When a government spends money to honour their great footgolfers, it is another proof, that FootGolf is on the way to reach something big in the future.” commented Gábor Gelencsér, president of the FIFG.​

Here you can read the reaction of the FIFG Board to the Swiss tournament called The Classic.

​Dear FIFG Members and World Tour Players,
 
Because of the confusion originated around The Classic FootGolf event in Switzerland and several emails we have received from country members and players, we feel that it is best if we share with you what the FIFG Board of Directors received as information about the decision made entirely and exclusively by the members of the Swiss FootGolf Board.

Please be clear that it was not until July 14th, 2020 that the FIFG Board received the following letter from Guy Pernet as President of Association Suisse de FootGolf. 
 
"Dear members of the board,
 
Following our board meeting from yesterday evening I inform you that :

- Swissfootgolf will note use blue golf system for the competitions in 2020. This has to consequence that no  competition will be integrated in the Regional Tour 3 and the World Tour from now until 31.12.2020. 

- At the moment no Swiss player attend to take a FIFG licence from now until 31.12.2020

Regarding the last FIFG news send by Lucas concerning the payment from 2020 FIFG fees can you please send us asap an invoice like during the previous year. So your treasurer will be able to pay asap the amount of $500.-.

Best regards
 
Association Suisse de Footgolf (Swissfootgolf)

Guy Pernet, président"

We want to make everyone clear that the FIFG Board did not make any decision as to The Classic not having any FIFG World Tour points. The decision was made by the Swiss Board and the information was forwarded to us a few months after opening registration to the tournament. This has nothing to do with their membership fee to the FIFG as they will pay that as all members do nor does it have anything to do with them not wanting to use the BlueGolf system as far as we know.  They actually were one of the first countries to get their payment system into BlueGolf when the Board set that step and have been active in learning how to use the BlueGolf system. Besides, the decision of using BlueGolf has been duly communicated to every country by the end of last year.

The decision to remove this tournament from the World Tour was solely their decision, even though they initially used the FIFG World Tour platform to promote the event offering FIFG World Tour points. As the FIFG Board we understand the concern of all players and we were very surprised to get this email from them especially knowing that they had The Classic coming up.  What we were not informed of was the letter that they sent out to all players about the situation and we regret that many of you took that letter to mean that the FIFG had banned them from participating in the World Tour because they didn't want to use the BlueGolf system and/or they wanted to included non-licensed players. 

We suggest that you direct all further questions to the Swiss Board and hopefully they will satisfy your concerns.  As a Board we take very seriously the hardship the Swiss Board has caused with their decision to many players, especially during these times when travel is difficult. The Board is reviewing this situation and will take steps to make sure this does not happen again without player knowledge before they pay entry fees. 

Sincerely,
 
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Federation for International FootGolf