Belgian federation

Hi Vincent, I am afraid I was not too active in the last months.

I remember reading in the July edition of Subbuteoflash that the Belgian federation was in a troubled condition. Lots of the demissionaries from the council including yourself, and pretty few people interested in filling the empty seats.

Can you tell us what is the situation at the moment? I hope you were able to overcome the difficulties!

Hello Lorenzo, indeed at the last general meeting 2 months ago most Board members decided to stop working. The Belgian Board has only 2 members left (Vito Di Ruggiero and Filip Van Hulle) and therefore we are in an illegal situation. We will have another general meeting on August 31 and maybe a solution will be found.

I believe the problem is the absence of "global project". The people who were in the Board really don't take about weaker players. As long as is a way to qualify for the World Cup and the Europa Cup, the rest doesn't count. In the past also Belgium was an important actor of FISTF. Nowadays nobody cares and most people just accept Laurent Garnier's illegal, stupid and wrong way to lead FISTF. As long as there is a world cup and an Europe Cup every year, people don't care and I think it is very sad.

Admin wrote: Nowadays nobody cares and most people just accept Laurent Garnier's illegal, stupid and wrong way to lead FISTF. As long as there is a world cup and an Europe Cup every year, people don't care and I think it is very sad.

What to do against it ? Currently I don't feel any movements against this situation. But being against it is a step to small, we all would need an alternative. And I don't see an alternative as long as people don't stand up.

Right now I think we can only wait until the next congress to show Laurent the red card.

And he will find another trick for sure...

Considering numbers are going down every year, I wonder how the situation will look like in 2014.

But there will be idiots to say "everything is fantastic and WE ARE VERY PROFESSIONAL".

Hi Janus, I like your positive way of thinking but so far nothing happened with the new statutes for an example after Frankfurt and Madrid, so it will be a dejavu before the next congress.
The only difference is that they managed it that there isn't any forum, where people can discuss like in 2010 and 2011 before the "congresses".
Laurent even didn't ignore the critic that the general secretary became president of FISTF, which is not possible in my opinion. There was no statement sent from FISTF, so finally maybe it was the right "tactic" because today everybody accepts the situation.
What happened after the WC so far? As it seems everybody enjoyed it or let's say people are only talking hidden, there is no possibility for the players to say their opinion, I even don't know if FISTF is interested in their opinion about the WC.
The numbers of players who play FISTF tournaments is actually on the level of 2006, the number of tournaments is low, which is wished by some people because then maybe more players will travel, which is not true as we can actually see. The number of tournaments is on a level of 2006 too. Satellites became more and more a preferred tournament for some players in the last years, which shows those players only want to play FISTF tournaments in their own country, personally I don't think that those players will travel to another country, if they can't play the Satellite in their own country anymore those players are lost for FISTF.
If the number of Majors and Grand Prixs is ok, can be discussed.
Italian clubs aren't travelling as much as in the past, what for? They can play CL or EL (in total now more italian clubs can play in CL and EL than with the old system in the EC) and they don't need to qualify over WR that they can even play at the EC.

By the way, Belgium has a new Board and Benoit Vanwissen is the new president.

Admin wrote:By the way, Belgium has a new Board and Benoit Vanwissen is the new president.

Good luck to Benoit !

All praise Benoit, the savior of Belgian table football!