IFAF Leads, BAFA Follows

This evening, BAFA released a statement with regards to individuals taking part in third party football activities. This is in reaction to the four team tournament in San Antonio last weekend hosted by FBU featuring teams from Canada (British Columbia), USA, Mexico and Europe.

The statement can be found here: http://bit.ly/13pwOUT

IFAF had sent a statement with regards to this tournament out on September 13^th. That statement can be found here - http://bit.ly/10pSRMs

In this statement, it says “Per IFAF Sanctioning Rules, all players and/or coaches participating in the event will be subject to disciplinary action from IFAF and their respective National Federation.”

Despite knowing they could face disciplinary action, the FBU tournaments still went ahead and a number of players and coaches from the UK featured on the FBU Europe team.

We contacted the head of IFAF, Tommy Wikingn for comment.

Here are the key parts from Mr. Wiking’s response. “Players and coaches who participate in unsanctioned international events may face a ban from all international competition. In this case if we are talking about British players, it would be club team competitions in Europe, national team competitions like EJC and WC.

“FBU has by the way never sought a sanction for their event anyhow."

“The reason is simply that IFAF member federations don’t want anyone to use infringe on their rights. Its only the national federation that can field a national team and any outside organization that fields a team that resembles to be a national team is not in accordance with the IFAF rules.”

Following his first reply, we sent Mr. Wiking a few more questions with regards to the extent of the bans and who would be handing them out, Mr. Wiking replied as follows.

“Its impossible to discuss all different angles of might be or how the disciplinary committee will make their decision. Its clear, if a player takes part in an unsanctioned event he (or she) can be subject to penalties.

“With that said, participation in games that is not sanctioned will most certainly result in a ban.

“BAFA doesn’t have a choice to accept or not accept a ban from IFAF. They, as any IFAF member, have to follow the decision. Its like if the IOC would ban an athlete for doping, the British Olympic committee cant chose if they want to accept the ban or not.  As far as I know BAFA have the same opinion about FBU games and teams as IFAF.”

Therefore, regardless of their thoughts and opinions of FBU, BAFA had to follow the ruling that IFAF handed out as they are a member of IFAF. This means that when BAFA realised this statement, they were just following IFAF’s orders.

It remains to be seen as to how the situation will play out, and what will happen to plays should FBU continue to run their camps, events, etc. Therefore, stayed tuned to Double Coverage as we continue to release all the key information as and when it comes out.