The Board of Directors of the Federation for International FootGolf has officially initiatated the process to conform the following committees:

a) Players Committee

b) Rules and Etiquette Committee

c) Statutes & Law Committee

More details on December 31st, 2016.

TOURNAMENTS AND COMPETITIONS
- World Tour & World Ranking. This week all active member countries will receive the FIFG World Tour 2017-2018 Package with information about the worldwide competition organized by the Board of Directors of Federation for International FootGolf and the launch of the FIFG World Ranking, reserved for players affiliated to FIFG Member Countries.
- Calendar of Activities 2017 . The Board of Director will actively work with all Member Countries in December to conform the FIFG Calendar 2017 and will present it in January. New update on Tournaments & Competitions on December 15th, 2016.


MEMBERSHIPS.
This week, all active FIFG Member Countries will receive the Membership Package 2017. Starting on January 1st, 2017 the Federation for International FootGolf will open the following countries for new membership requests:
- Croatia
- Spain
- Panama
- Portugal
The Puerto Rico FootGolf Association will continue developing the sport of FootGolf under the umbrella of the American FootGolf League as an AFGL Chapter. New update on memberships on December 15th, 2016.


COMMITTEES
The Membership Committee is conformed by Shinpei Matsuura President of FootGolf Japan and Leonardo Fernandez, President of FootGolf Australia. The Committee of Tournaments and Competitions is conformed by Javier de Ancizar, President of FootGolf Argentina and Romuald Pretor, President of France. The SportAccord and Drug-Alcohol FIFG Committees are unfied and conformed by Leonardo Fernández, President of FootGolf Australia,  Kisung Dennis Kwon President of FootGolf South Korea and Maurits Van Tubergen Lotgering, President of FootGolf Holland. The Committee of Rules and Etiquette, Players Committee and Statutes Law Committee will be announced on December 15th, 2016.


IMPORTANT
The FIFG Logo is reserved for FIFG Member Countries, exclusively. We kindly request to all FootGolf enthusiasts around the world to respect our branding.


WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA.
The new official website and social media channels of the Federation for International FootGolf will be activated during the first quarter of 2017. The board of director will start working on these and other important communication matters in mid January.


CONTACT
To contact the FIFG Board of Directors, please call at +44 20 3887 2300 or send an e-mail to board@fifg.org - For more information about the Federation for International FootGolf visit: www.fifg.org

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The new FIFG Board would like to keep you informed on the current and future activities. We will give you monthly updates with our progress towards the main goals set by the Board. We would also like to keep you informed of any other matters we become aware of and regard as valuable for international FootGolf.
Here is a brief description of current activities and our future work for the rest of 2016.

August – September 2016

During the months of August and September the new Board members worked with the members of the previous Board to get to know the situation and to get access to relevant information to perform our duties. The board is currently defining the 2017 Budget. This process requires careful consideration of uses of funds as well as sources of those funds.
 
October 2016

During the month of October, we will send the 2017 Budget to all our FIFG Member Countries and will make sure every member country is advised of the objectives of the budget, the expected results as well as the obligations derived from the budget. We will also focus on reviewing FIFG memberships (this work is already under way), both from existing member countries and from countries applying to become FIFG members. We will initiate the formation of a Players Committee that will allow us to hear and include player opinions and views in some specific projects and regarding important matters.

November 2016

We are going to establish a Rules Committee to work together with member associations representatives and players to update our Rulebook. The Rules Committee will have the objective of updating our rulebook based on the experience accumulated since the last refresh and to make it evolving by creating mechanisms to periodically reviewing specific rules. We will work on a Player Membership scheme that gives players benefits at the time it allows FIFG to officially integrate those players to the organization.

December 2016

One of the main objectives of this Board is to get FIFG to become a SportAccord member. Works toward this goal have already started and we are gathering the necessary information, both from the previous Board and from external sources. We expect to be able to give you an update on our progress in this area by December. We are working in other areas as well and the Board activities are not limited to the mentioned above. We are excited to be working together towards such key objectives for the development of our sport. Please feel free to contact your FIFG Member Country if you have any questions or comments.

Thank you for your support,

 

FIFG Board of Directors.

The election for the Vice Presidents of the FIFG has ended and the result have been confirmed by an independent voting system.  The new Vice Presidents of the FIFG will be Shinpei Matsuura-Japan and Javier de Ancizar-Argentina.  Official results are published below. More information will be posted over the next 24 hours. Congratulations to Javier and Shinpei for winning and we wish both of them much success as they join the Board of the FIFG as Vice Presidents.
 
The next few weeks will bring about a winding up of the previous Board and transfer of duties to the new Board.  

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The election for the President of the FIFG has ended and the result have been confirmed by an independent voting system.  The new President of the FIFG will be Roberto Balestrini-USA.  Official results are published below. More information will be posted over the next 24 hours. Congratulations to Roberto for the strong win and we wish him our best as he takes on this important role and moves the FIFG to greater accomplishments.

The Election for the Vice Presidents will begin on Monday the 18th of July 2016. There are three candidates for Vice President; Javier De Ancizar-Argentina, Shinpei Matsuura-Japan and Arthur Batista-South Africa. Members of the FIFG will receive an email with the link to a ballot to vote for the two candidates they choose.
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Japan gained some small revenge in the first Ladies Footgolf Faceoff v Team USA at the ANA Inspiration. A rematch of the Ladies World Cup Football final of 2015 where the USA were the victorious. The six hole Footgolf challenge match between the two countries featured 2 world famous soccer stars and 2 world famous LPGA stars from each nation with Roberto Balestrini, the AFGL founder coaching Team USA and the Japanese Footgolf President, Shinpei Matsuura leading his country.

Likewise the FIFG would like to thank Roberto and Laura Balestrini and the ANA Inspiration for organising this wonderful event and look forward to more collaboration in the future.

Following the successful FIFG World Cup held in the glorious summer sunshine of Argentina in January many countries the world over break into spring with the start of their 2016 National leagues and competitions.

The irish kicked off their National Tour on the 6th of March in Kilkenny whilst in France last weekend the 1st  & 2nd stages of The Footgolf Cup attracted some European stars from Holland and the UK to their opening events of 2016. The Hungarian Footgolf Federation had a special event for this Easter weekend with some very seasonal prizes!!

The first event of the UK National Tour took place in beautiful hilly Devon, England proving a bit tiresome for some, and in Italy the season is well on the way there with prizes galore for many different types of events. The popularity of the "Team" event at the World Cup has fuelled the imagination of many associations and they are introducing competitions for Pairs, Teams, Ladies Juniors and Seniors proving that Footgolf can be played at a competitive level by virtually anyone!!
Other countries starting their seasons are Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Slovakia and Portugal but it is not just in Europe where Footgolf is getting everyone excited.

The Japanese have taken to the sport in true style with some creative fashions hitting the fairways and greens. They stole the show on the Footgolf catwalk at the World Cup and soon you will be hearing some exciting news of a special Ladies event taking place in the USA between the hosts and Japan........stay tuned!!

A strong but selective international field were given a Footgolf lesson by Dutch maestro Jim Kuipers last weekend. He led from start to finish and bettered his final score of the 2015 event here in November by a massive 15 shots.

Kuiper's first round score of -11 established a 3 shot lead over top Argentinian Matias Perrone and Ben Clarke from the UK who was defending his 2015 Turkish title and going for a 4th consecutive European victory.

His second round score of -9 confirmed the rich vein of form kuipers has been in since his World Cup 7th position in January in Argentina and guaranteed him the win as he held off Perrone and Clarke by a comprehensive 5 and 6 shots respectively.

Hungary won the "Team" event. They bounced back after a poor World Cup by their standards and a strong showing by Krisztian Bogar -11, Gyorgy Podusil -8, Robert Tajtyi -3 and Hungarian President Gabor Gelencser -2 meant they held on for a 3 point victory over the UK team, with Slovakia coming 3rd.

A few weeks break now for the European Tour before the events come thick and fast during May and June. The next event is in Dublin, Ireland on the 14th/15th May.

​Full details can be found at www.europeanfootgolftour.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 22, 2016

FIFG SANCTIONS THE EUROPEAN FOOTGOLF TOUR
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EFT to be recognised by the FIFG

London, UK, On February 22, 2016, the Federation for International FootGolf (FIFG) recognises the European FootGolf Tour (EFT) and gives it's support to the governing body to manage the European Tour for FIFG member countries.  In sanctioning the tour it assures the FIFG it will 
continue to foster relations between members in a competitive atmosphere, strive to develop the game at an international level and build on the standards that both it, and the FIFG, have set.
The current EFT Executive Committee is headed by the inaugural President, Julien Babel of Switzerland. He is joined by FIFG Board member and Hungarian Footgolf Federation President Gabor Gelencser, Cathal Jenkinson, Operations Director of the Irish FootGolf Association and Paul Killick,  a Director of the UK FootGolf Association complete the Executive Committee.
“We are delighted that the FIFG has recognized the hard work being done by the EFT and have pledged their backing to the Tour going forward” Julien Babel – EFT President
The EFT Tour 2016 starts in Turkey on March 11th and concludes in Morocco in December, visiting 16 countries over 3 continents along the way. For more information, visit www.europeanfootgolftour.com.

After beating Hungary, Holland and Argentina in the final, the United States became the 2016 Footgolf Team World Champions. The team's coach, Marcelo Landau, told us how Team USA won this new and innovative format of the sport.

You played in Hungary four years ago. How do you remember the first World Cup?
It was amazing to be invited and play with the first countries and to be a part of the FootGolf history. I was one of the oldest players there and the only one sent by the AFGL to represent the United States on that World Cup.

What was your job as a coach of the US team before and during the second World Cup?
I knew we had sixteen champions on the course, so the most important thing was to keep the team spirit high. Our goal now is to be prepared to defend the title at the next World Cup.

Was it hard to pick the best members for the match play?
Even though these players live in different states in the US, they managed to train and it was not so easy to determine who could be the very best option to play in the first day of team competition. We practiced once all together in Palm Springs, CA and then we had the 16 again at practice day in Pilar Golf Club. Deciding the first line-up is not easy, we made changes before the semi-final, and then returned to the original four players. All were great, including those who didn't play in the team competition as they had a very important role of supporting the four that played each day.

Seeing just the results, the quarter and the semi final seemed easy, was it?
Every game was very tough. We were lucky against Hungary. While our balls landed in the cup, they missed their chances. In the semi final, we had a big opportunity, because Collin Green missed the game. But the hardest match was the final, it's true.

What are the main differences between the two World Cups?
The game continues to develop and the rules have changed a lot. It's exciting to see how many people are familiar with our sport, and how many play it. In June 2012, we had only one course and a few players. Now the AFGL has 450 courses in 49 states to play FootGolf. The potential is big, the participation is increasing by the day, we have the structure for competitive players all around the country and we are also focused on the kids now. I know the FIFG is working on getting more countries involved and with everybody's support, we can all work together to get FootGolf to the Olympics. 

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