SLOVAKIA MEMBER 18

Good news was received by the FIR office in Vienna in the last couple of days when recently elected president Puha Zsolt sent a fax as proof that the Slovakian Racketlon Association has now been legally founded and is applying for membership to the FIR – Federation Internationale de Racketlon. Slovakian Marcel Kravec has shown some impressing matches on the FIR World Tour, especially in doubles knocking out O’Donnell/Schaub with his partner at Hungarian Open. The next countries expected to apply to FIR are Slovenia, Portugal, Netherlands and hopefully South Africa.

No objection within one month

The procedure according to the FIR statutes is simple and as follows. All the country representatives are notified by the application and should there be no objection (which is expected) Slovakia will become official member number 18 of the FIR within one months time.

Legal federations to end of 2007

Other problems FIR has at the moment concerns the existing members Bulgaria, Canada and France who show few signs of registering legal federations until the end of 2007. According to a General Meeting decision this would mean they lose FIR membership at the end of this year. “I hope we can prevent this situation, we need to grow not decrease our members”, says FIR-president Marcel Weigl. Poland only a couple of weeks ago founded its national federation and others like Germany, Scotland and England have already handed in their papers in the respective countries and FIR is eagerly waiting for the papers.

30 countries on 3 continents

FIR needs to have 30 national federations on 3 continents to be able to apply for membership to the GAISF – General Association of Sports Federations to become a worldwide acknowledged sport with possibilities of subsidies. “If all enthusiastic Racketlon players of the world work together, we can make it until the end of 2008”, is Weigl optimistic.

FIR-President: Marcel Weigl