CMAS World Championships

[Goran Colak]

Originally Posted by Daić

Goran, do you know how many competitours and countries wer there? Where can I see the resolts?

Jure

Results are on CMAS pages, mgm posted that before...

There was 41 competitior in JB and about the same in DYN, from about 8-9 countries... I don't know exatcly but you can count real number on CMAS results page...

[wizards]

CMAS don't give a damn about making their sports more competitive they only care about their self importance in the eyes of the IOC. You cant negotiate or reason with them they have it set up so their board of directors can do exactly what they like.

Believe me I know from first hand experience, I have worked with the Slovenian federation to try and get this ridiculous rule changed, but all to no avail.

When an organisation cares more about itself than the members it represents it makes certain it will never succeed.

The underwater hockey fraternity boycotted the CMAS games and only six countries were represented, all from Europe. Last year at the world hockey championships there were 19 countries from 3 continents, CMAS screwed them so now they are leaving and going it alone.

As I said earlier I have seen their lust for power and control first hand and all i can suggest is to stay well away from them.

Cheers

[trux]

Originally Posted by wizards

Believe me I know from first hand experience, I have worked with the Slovenian federation to try and get this ridiculous rule changed, but all to no avail.

Did you try consulting some lawyer experienced with international and anti-trust laws? As I wrote above, I am pretty sure that the rule represents illegal business behavior, and that CMAS could be prosecuted and fined for forbidden business practices. Yes, I know that it is not a real corporation, but rather an association (not sure if it is a non-profit organization though), but it may not be important. A skilled lawyer would tell you better. I'd recommend that your federation consults one - the first consultation is usually free or inexpensive, so you do not risk any high cost for just that. The best may be contacting your local anti-trust agency, or asking at the Chamber of Commerce for help - they will be certainly able to tell you which agency or which lawyer to consult with a monopolist problem. Personally, I'd love seeing CMAS sued and fined for that, and for other screwing-ups of diverse UW sports. For example in France they do not allow UW rugby at all, telling it is too dangerous. What a bunch of old morons! (moderators: sorry for the strong words, but I realy consider CMAS harming the sport greatly - if it is not acceptable to keep such comments here on DB, please feel free to edit it out)

[trux]

PS: if you decide consulting a lawyer as I suggested, he will certainly ask if you or your federation suffered some financial harm due to monopolist restrictive behavior of CMAS. Make sure to put your arguments well together and try making some calculations. It is sure that CMAS, by forbidding divers to participate either on AIDA or on CMAS competitions greatly reduces the chance to find a lucrative sponsor, but it is certainly not the only economical harm it caused. Try to think about it little bit and putting some facts on paper before going to the lawyer.

[wizards]

Hi Trux, we have looked at taking them to at least the CAS (court for sport arbitration) but the cost and time constraints make this a difficult option. I don't disagree that we would have a good chance of winning a case but the time and effort needed is enormous and even if we did win they would just find another way to get at us.

I am also the President of the CMAS Underwater Hockey Commission (for how much longer I am not sure) and we have already had a precedent where we took them to the CAS. Jersey wanted to come and play in last years world hockey championships and when they tried to register with CMAS, their application was refused on the grounds that they did not have an Olympic committee and that they were part of the British Isles.

They have their own government, money, flag and laws much like Australia and Canada. Even the British delegate to CMAS told them that they were not recognised as part if Britain, but this was not enough the CMAS Secretary General said they were so they were not allowed to join. So much for the Olympic philosophy of sport for all (as long as your not from Jersey yo can play)

To cut a long story short we lodged the papers with the court it took over 8 months to hear and cost us $3,500 up front.

CMAS has a legal Commission made up of Lawyers that they get for free and are in their back pocket, they never argued the merits of the case. Their argument was solely based on whether we the commission as part of CMAS had the right to lodge an appeal. A further problem was that as CMAS is based in Rome their statutes say that any proceedings must be heard under Italian law.

In the end we lost the appeal on a technicality as they ruled that we did not have the right to lodge an appeal, our arguments were never tested. The one good thing is that the lawyers must have looked at our arguments because they awarded costs against CMAS.

So now the commission finds itself as the representative body of all the underwater hockey players without a right to question any decision CMAS makes. A position we find untenable.

A a footnote to this story CMAS are currently taking disciplinary action against me, not the commission as a whole who are the ones that make our decisions, just me. The message they are trying to make is clear and they will do whatever it takes to get anyone who stands against them. So this is why 18 of the 24 playing nations are leaving and starting a new world body.

IADA should capitalise on the stupid CMAS rules and vigorously promote themselves to take the members off CMAS. I suppose the point I am making here is that people know that if they stand up to be heard, they will have things done to them to get them out of CMAS in the future so most just shut up and tow the line.

But for hockey players we would rather stand on our feet than live on our knees.

Regards.

[wizards]

PS as a footnote for those who want info about Bari. It was not so much a world championship for any of the sports it was more a European championship.

Have a look at the ratio of Europeans to any other continent, and CMAS call themselves a world organisation. I think not, outside of Europe it is CMAS who?

[trux]

I think their arrogance and the narrow-mindedness will break their necks once. It was for that reasons already that PADI took over scuba years ago in most countries, and if they don't radically change, other sports will follow one after the other.

As for the court battles - I see the problems; it's a real nightmare fighting against such a fossil giant. But trying a civil court, suing them for financial damages may be a more viable way - I still think that consulting an experienced lawyer may be worth of it.

[Billextreme]

Maybe we should start a special U/W hockey department inside of AIDA...

;-)

[fabrice]

FYI, the french national federation (FFESSM) is taking CMAS to the CAS because of the disqualification of Christophe Bruel in DYN.

[cebaztian]

As far as I know CMAS is a non profit organization. Its absolutly volontary to seek membership with them. Let them have what rules that pleases them (and their members). Only their own members can change their own organization. Give their childish behaviour some slack and be ready to welcome them into future cooperation. Whenever that may be.

Sebastian

In the long run Aikido works better than boxing and less people get hurt.

[LEVENTUCUZAL]

Per CMAS rules this year any competitor who are attended to any Non CMAS competition couldn't contribute to the competition (the same branch) such as dynamic. This also happened to some athletes from Crotia and Venezualle as well as Ecuador. But they were allowed to go in Jump Blue.

For the other question; the total number of athletes were around 40 for each branch jump blue and dynamic. You can get the results from CMAS home page.

cheers.

[trux]

Originally Posted by cebaztian

As far as I know CMAS is a non profit organization. Its absolutly volontary to seek membership with them. Let them have what rules that pleases them (and their members). Only their own members can change their own organization. Give their childish behaviour some slack and be ready to welcome them into future cooperation. Whenever that may be

Easy to tell, but in some countries your club simply won't get any pool time unless it is registered with the federation. You may also have trouble to get insurance cover in those countries if you are not member of the federation. And there are many other problems involved. Well, you are right that it cannot stop you from freediving or training in other ways, but it definitely makes it much more difficult.

[wizards]

I would be interested to hear how by not being a member of a federation you can be stopped from getting pool time and also stopped from obtaining insurance? I only know of 2 European federations that actively channel money through government or IOC grants to the various sports.

This is a myth that CMAS use as a scare tactic to hold on to members. IADA rose from the ashes of CMAS so there is a valuable history lesson there for CMAS and if they ignore it they are bound to relive it.

One thing for sure the new hockey world body wont be banning anyone from competing, Sport is for all.

[trux]

Sorry, but that's not a myth, it is a sad reality. Just read through the thread to see the facts.

As for the first question - I am not sure how exactly it works in other lands, but for example in France (and it may be quite similar in many other European countries), freediving clubs are governed by FFESSM (branch of CMAS). No non-FFESSM club will be admitted to any pool. It is as simple as that. Well, now you may be able to find some private pools that would accept you, but even if you manage to find one (which is questionable), it will be likely extremely expensive. Same goes for the insurance - normally you are being insured though an insurance agency having agreement with FFESSM. I doubt they will insure you individually if you are not a member of FFESSM. Again, you may be able to find another insurance, but as soon as you tell them that the official FFESSM insurance agency does not want to insure you, you can be pretty sure they either refuse you, or offer an extremely expensive insurance.

[wizards]

Hi Trux as I said in my earlier post I know of 2 federations only in Europe and one of them is FFESSM which has a turnover of 3,000.000 Euros a year, that can exert that much pressure, the other is the Italian federation/

FFESSM is not like any other federation because they have the sole rights to fishing licenses and also have the biggest diving instructor agencies.

As I said earlier I still believe that there is only 2 federations like this. But having said this I bet Apnea does not receive grant funds from FFESSM that are only available because of the federations link to CMAS and the IOC, and if by some chance you do I would love to know what stipulations are put on them.