 The COVID-19 pandemic makes everything harder nowadays and the fight against the virus has a different status in every country. FIFG asked the members how they can go on with the Regionals in times when the World Tour is suspended.
The FIFG carried out another questionnaire to obtain information regarding all of the country members’ thoughts of the implementation of the Regional Tour. The results have indicated that more than 70% believe it should be decided within each region. “Every region is living different realities; therefore, we believe Regional Tour tournaments should be considered as an internal decision.“ said Javier de Ancizar, World Tour director. Regional Tours consist of FIFG 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000. Every region can organize any of these tournaments, though the FIFG 250, 500 and 1000 will only count for the regional rankings if it is organized prior to the reestablishment of the World Tour competitions. While the World Tour is suspended these tournaments should be differentiated with the letter R (regional) and the region number. For example, a FIFG 500 in region 3 would be a R3-500. “We believe this will help the player know what they are competing for.” he added.
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 After evaluating all country responses and feedback, the FIFG decided to postpone the continuation of the World Tour at least until July 1st. FIFG keeps following the worldwide situation and makes a decision on June 15th.
The FIFG has shared a questionnaire with all the country members in order to see what the FootGolf condition is across the globe due to the international health emergency of the COVID-19. The results show:
“On the weekly board meeting, FIFG decided to postpone the continuation of the World Tour at least until July 1st. We will take the next 30 days to keep examining all the country regulations and ratify or rectify our decision on June 15th.” said Javier de Ancizar, World Tour director.  The BlueGolf console is officially ready to operate. The members have started to upload the few tournaments held in 2020.
The new scoring and ranking system have been tested and developed in the last months. A lot of members have already started to try and use the BlueGolf system. Those countries that have organized FIFG tournaments need to add tournament scores and link them to the POY rankings. They should also edit the calendar and reschedule the tournaments for after June 1st.  With the postponement of the World Cup until 2021, and the impossibility to run the World Tour 2020 as expected, the first FIFG Masters will take place in 2022 instead of 2021.
As it was written in the World Tour 2020 guidelines, the Masters will be played every year with the best National, Regional and World Tour players. This tournament will take place in parallel with one of the Major tournaments of the following year (rotating every year among the 4 Regions) in order to take advantage of the organizing structure, logistics, etc. The plan was to hold the first Masters in 2021. Because of the postponed World Cup and the suspended World Tour, FIFG decided to move the first Masters to 2022.  Because of the economic instability, FIFG made financial decisions to help the members to hold tournaments in the future.  The problem of COVID-19 is clearly affecting local businesses and creating financial and economic instability all over the world. In this regard, in case the World Tour resets this year, FIFG decided to eliminate all fees for those that will host FIFG 250, FIFG 500 and FIFG 1000 tournaments. Also, decided to reduce the mandatory cash purse for the Majors down to USD 3,000 instead of USD 7,500.   Because of the changes in the World Cup organization, the deadline of the 2020 World Cup qualification through the World Tour is extended.
As it is written in the 2020 World Tour guidelines: the rankings cut for the World Cup qualification is August 31st, 2020. Because the WC will not be organized in 2020, the deadline is extended indefinitely. The new deadline will be adjusted to the new date of the World Cup and to the restart of the World Tour. There are no changes in the spots. The following positions in the final ranking will receive a direct entry and consequently open new spots for their FIFG Member Country. World Tour Ranking:
 Gábor Gelencsér, president of the FIFG was invited to the FootGolfos live show on Monday. He spoke about the new situation caused by the coronavirus, the World Cup and World Tour plans for the future. We summarized his thoughts by topics. Coronavirus "The most important thing is to stay home and be safe, I am at home with my family also. This is what we have to do in Hungary like in a lot of countries." World Tour "We stopped the World Tour now and we are going to continue it hopefully in the summer. We had a few tournaments yet, and will see - with all the members -, how can we go forward in this situation. The qualification threw the WT will go on as well in the future. If we can not continue it in the summer, we have to review it again. Before the final decision, we will ask all the members of course. It was done before also and most of the feedback suggested a pause on the World Tour." World Cup 2020 "We had so many meetings with the Japanese organizers in the last weeks. Only one decision has been made as you know: the World Cup is not going to be held in 2020. The target is to analyse the situation for 2021. It is so fresh now that the International Olympic Committee announced the same dates for the Olympics in 2021 in the middle of the summer. We will see what Japan can offer in this new situation, but there is no decision yet. I hope we can have an answer until the 1st June."  Qualification
"All the qualified players have their place in the next World Cup. We will discuss the situation of the seniors, because of the age limit." World Cup 2022 "We know, USA is going to bid for hosting the 5th World Cup. Now, it is a tricky question. First of all, we have to see what is going to happen with the 4th World Cup. We can only make decisions just after everything will be clear. The possibilities are to postpone the 5th WC for a year or keep the original idea to have it in 2022. Right now, our focus is on the following World Cup." BlueGolf "The US and the UK have already used it. I hope everybody will see it soon, how great this system is with new ranking, leaderboards and some many functions like live scoring or interesting stats about the players. The application can be downloaded or the website is reachable to get familiar with it until we will use it on the tournaments in the future." (FootGolfos)  The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the government of Japan today agreed new dates for the games of the XXXII Olympiad, in 2021. The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will be celebrated from 23 July to 8 August 2021. They also agreed on new dates for the Paralympic Games, which will be celebrated from 24 August until 5 September 2021.
The leaderships of the key parties came together via telephone conference earlier today, joined by IOC President Thomas Bach, Tokyo 2020 President Mori Yoshirō, Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko and Olympic and Paralympic Minister Hashimoto Seiko, and agreed on the new schedule. This decision was taken based on three main considerations and in line with the principles established by the IOC Executive Board (EB) on 17 March 2020 and confirmed at its meeting today. These were supported by all the International Summer Olympic Sports Federations (IFs) and all the National Olympic Committees (NOCs): 1. To protect the health of the athletes and everyone involved, and to support the containment of the COVID-19 virus. 2. To safeguard the interests of the athletes and of Olympic sport. 3. The global international sports calendar. These new dates give the health authorities and all involved in the organisation of the Games the maximum time to deal with the constantly changing landscape and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The new dates, exactly one year after those originally planned for 2020 (Olympic Games: 24 July to 9 August 2020 and Paralympic Games: 25 August to 6 September 2020), also have the added benefit that any disruption that the postponement will cause to the international sports calendar can be kept to a minimum, in the interests of the athletes and the IFs. Additionally, they will provide sufficient time to finish the qualification process. The same heat mitigation measures as planned for 2020 will be implemented. In a call on Tuesday 24 March 2020, based on information provided by the WHO at the time, IOC President Thomas Bach and Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō concluded that the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 would be held in their complete form and not later than summer 2021. The Prime Minister reiterated that the government of Japan stands ready to fulfil its responsibility for hosting these successful Games. At the same time, IOC President Thomas Bach stressed the full commitment of the IOC to successful Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Following today’s decision, the IOC President said: “I want to thank the International Federations for their unanimous support and the Continental Associations of National Olympic Committees for the great partnership and their support in the consultation process over the last few days. I would also like to thank the IOC Athletes’ Commission, with whom we have been in constant contact. With this announcement, I am confident that, working together with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Government and all our stakeholders, we can master this unprecedented challenge. Humankind currently finds itself in a dark tunnel. These Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 can be a light at the end of this tunnel.” Andrew Parsons, the President of the IPC, commented: “It is fantastic news that we could find new dates so quickly for the Tokyo 2020 Games. The new dates provide certainty for the athletes, reassurance for the stakeholders and something to look forward to for the whole world. When the Paralympic Games do take place in Tokyo next year, they will be an extra-special display of humanity uniting as one, a global celebration of human resilience and a sensational showcase of sport. With the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games 512 days away, the priority for all those involved in the Paralympic Movement must be to focus on staying safe with their friends and family during this unprecedented and difficult time.” The President of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, Mori Yoshirō, said: “IOC President Thomas Bach and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee held a conference call today to discuss in detail the revised dates of the Tokyo 2020 Games. Minister for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games Hashimoto Seiko and Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko joined the call. I proposed that the Games should be hosted between July and August 2021, and I really appreciate that President Bach, having discussed this proposal with the various international sports federations and other related organisations, kindly accepted my proposal. A certain amount of time is required for the selection and qualification of athletes and for their training and preparation, and the consensus was that staging the rescheduled Games during the summer vacation in Japan would be preferable. In terms of transport, arranging volunteers and the provision of tickets for those in Japan and overseas, as well as allowing for the COVID-19 situation, we think that it would be better to reschedule the Games to one year later than planned, in the summer of 2021. Notwithstanding the postponement of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the first time in history, and various other issues that have already been highlighted, the event schedule is the cornerstone of future preparations, and I am convinced that taking this decision promptly will help speed up future preparations. I would like to thank all the stakeholders, including the host city Tokyo and the Government of Japan, for their hard work during this short period. The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee will continue to work hard for the success of next year's Games.” Governor Koike Yuriko said: “In consideration of the global coronavirus outbreak, we need a certain timeframe before we fully prepare for the delivery of Games that are safe and secure for the athletes and spectators. Also, the preparation for the new dates will go smoothly, as the dates match with same timeframe as the original competition dates, corresponding with ticketing, venue staffing, volunteers and transport. Therefore, I believe that celebrating the opening of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on 23 July 2021 is ideal. The athletes, volunteers, torchbearers and local municipality governments have been concerned about the situation. Since we now have concrete new dates to aim for, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will commit all its resources, and work closely with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the national government and other stakeholders to fully prepare for the delivery of Games that are safe and secure.” It has previously been confirmed that all athletes already qualified and quota places already assigned for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will remain unchanged. This is a result of the fact that these Olympic Games Tokyo , in agreement with Japan, will remain the Games of the XXXII Olympiad. (IOC)  Because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, The FIFG World Cup will not take place during 2020, and no FIFG tournaments will take place until June 1st. WORLD CUP 2020 On March 26th 2020 the FIFG Board met with the Japanese FootGolf Association (World Cup organizers). During the meeting the JFGA authorities stated that the situation is getting worse every day with the COVID-19. On top of this, the IOC decided to postpone the Olympics for 2021. Therefore, the JFGA authorities declared their intention to postpone the World Cup. Minutes after that meeting, the FIFG Board received a formal letter from Mr. Shinpei Matsuura, President of the JFGA, expressing their intention to postpone the World Cup to the year 2021. “The situation has been changing dramatically day by day in the world. Since the Olympics are going to be postponed to the next year, it would be rational to postpone the FootGolf World Cup to the next year as well. We believe that the most important thing is to keep FootGolf families and all the people in the World safe, healthy, and in peace at this moment. We do hope that everybody is trying to be extremely careful in keeping good shape and conditions during this difficult time…”, declares Mr. Matsuura in his letter. In line with this reasoning, and with the recommendations received by most member countries, the 4th FIFG World Cup WILL NOT take place during 2020. During the next few weeks the FIFG Board will monitor the situation in order to evaluate all the alternatives. For instance if the World Cup is going to be moved to 2021, there is a need to know the new dates for the Olympics. WORLD TOUR 2020 Due to the pandemic situation with the COVID-19, and in compliance with the World Health Organization’s recommendations, and in line with the majority of the suggestions submitted by some member countries, the Federation for International FootGolf decided to reschedule all FIFG tournaments effectively as of today and through May 31st 2020. This means that NO FIFG tournaments (50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000) will take place until, at least, June 1st. “We all know that this is a very dynamic situation, which changes every day, so the FIFG Board will monitor the situation very closely to see whether it needs to make further decisions, such as rescheduling again or modifying both the World and Regional Tours and Rankings. In this regard, by May 15th the FIFG Board will assess the situation, make an update and release another announcement accordingly”, said Javier de Ancizar, Vice President of the FIFG.   The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach and the prime minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, held a conference call this morning to discuss the constantly changing environment with regard to COVID-19 and the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
President Bach and Prime Minister Abe expressed their shared concern about the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and what it is doing to people’s lives and the significant impact it is having on global athletes’ preparations for the Games.In a very friendly and constructive meeting, the two leaders praised the work of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee and noted the great progress being made in Japan to fight against COVID-19. In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community. The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present. Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. The FIFG is arranging a meeting instantly with the Japanese organizers of the FIFG FootGolf World Cup originally scheduled for the end of September. |
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