WBF Congress

This important meeting took place yesterday morning and contained a great deal of interest and importance for those delegates who were able to attend.

Those who did not should make sure they bring to the attention of their Federations the key points to emerge from the meeting.

After a welcome from the President of the Congress, Marc Hodler, WBF President, José Damiani presented a detailed report which highlighted the following:

The revision to the Laws is ongoing, and should be completed in 2007.

Unfortunately, many countries (and not always the smaller ones) are still staging high-level contests without screens, bidding boxes and duplicated deals. In addition they are not using the specially designed symmetrical cards that are ethically important and also provide more visual comfort, given their distinctive colours of black Spades, red Hearts, orange Diamonds and grey Clubs.

Imagine playing football tennis and golf with balls of different sizes!

Licenses will be given to card manufacturers throughout the world, and the WBF is counting on Federations to use these cards that can be bought at the end of the championships (which some federations have already done). Imagine the new resources NBOs and the WBF might get from selling these cards to some 60 million bridge players.

New members were announced: Cuba, Macedonia, Mongolia & Nigeria.

Under the banner 'Bridge, together with music, is the only Universal language.' there was a detailed presentation of how bridge can be promoted and developed. (The materials are available from the WBF.)

A key element is to harness the power of the Internet.

A proposal has been put to the Executive Council (but no decision has yet been reached) to reduce the number of Zones from the current 8 to 5 to conform to the 5 rings of the IOC. This would result in the combining of Zones 2, 3 and 5 and Zones 4 and 6.

WBF dues have not been increased since Maastricht in 2000 but a graduated increase from $0.50 to $1.00 for 2008 onwards has been agreed and was ratified by the Congress.

The IMSA (International Mind Sports Association) was created in April 2005 in Berlin and representatives from Chess, Go and Draughts elected the WBF President as President of this institution.

The General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) is keen to support our project and its President, Hein Verbruggen, who is also President of the Liaison Committee with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has informed the Executive Commission of the IOC and its president of this.

In October 2008 the intention is to organize the first Intellympiad in Beijing where it is hoped to be able to invite the Junior teams (and possibly the Open & Women's teams) and provide them with free board and lodging while the Seniors and Mixed will face the usual charges.

At that time, it is hoped 120 countries will compete rather than 80 as is the case today.

The WBF has decided to give financial aid to a certain number of federations to send their teams to the University Championships in Tianjin later this year, as well as a certain number to the Junior and Schools Championships in Bangkok.

The failure of several very large countries, not to say the largest, to send teams to the university or junior championships, resembles the death knell for bridge and cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

There was a presentation for Tianjin and if any Federation is still in a position to form a team and to cover half the costs the WBF will provide the other half.

This will demonstrate to FISU – with whom the WBF enjoys an excellent relationship – that bridge indeed is a sport that merits their support.

Encouraging the young to play bridge is so important that the WBF will help the small federations to participate in Bangkok, and possibly in Nashville 2007 and will pay the full costs in Beijing 2008.

After the Treasurer's well received report there were presentations of forthcoming Championships:

2006 FISU University championships, Tianjin

2007 Bermuda Bowl & Venice Cup, Shanghai

2008 Olympiad (and Intellympiad), Beijing

It was clear from these presentations that all these events will enjoy outstanding facilities, and television coverage of the 2007 World Championships is already assured.

Finally there were presentations of the new game, aBRIDGEd (using the slogan 'Bridge night is back.'), and the tests Play Bridge.