I only read the full translation of the CMAS "ultimatum" from that link now and I have to say, it is ridiculous. They want to have full monopoly of all uw-activities.
I don't see it as a problem for scuba-divers and free divers. They can just laugh at their face and move on to another organization. That's what I will do anyway, if being forced to choose, and I'm sure the majority of my country men would choose similarily. My affiliation to someone sitting thousands of kilometers away, making money off my back is a fragile bond, which is solely based on MUTUAL benefit of this relationship. I have absolutely no problems severing it and saving a few bucks in the process...I don't pay them to tell me what to do, I pay them to enable me to better do what I like doing (and will keep on doing) anyway.
It is a problem for sports like finswimming and uw rugby, because there is no alternative. Either CMAS or no international federation (as far as I'm aware). I can only hope that people "see the light" and decide that no federation or rebuilding a new one is better than this utter bullshit. And I use the word bull***** because from the tone presented in that ultimatum I get the feeling that we are not treated in a nice and civil manner, so I see no reason to respond that way either...But finswimming is alread a pretty big and established sport. Just tearing it down and rebuilding it would be a very tough thing for the top athletes...
I don't see AIDA taking those sports under it's wings anytime soon. But maybe they could do a sort of a gesture to encourage some to choose a side. Introduce a new dicipline, such as 50m timed dynamic apnea. All it would take would be half a paragraph more in the current rules and we'd have something to offer to pissed of finswimmers...
All it would take then is the desicion of a few idealistic elite swimmers to go with that and CMAS would probably start moving back to the "real world" from what ever "bizarro world" they're living in...
It would be funny if AIDA issued a parody of that message, mimicing the style and structure, but the message would be something like:
"AIDA whole heartedly welcomes everyone interested in underwater activities, of any race, nationality, religion or affiliation to join our common love of all things underwater. Let the recreational divers as well as professional sportsmen unite in peace love and harmony and celebrate the busum of mother earth, also know as the ocean" Or some new age hippie rhetoric like that...
