June 30th 2007

Dear Readers,

The released statement regarding the WMF Championships conveys deceptive information and is not acceptable to the wider MuayThai community.

I would like to take this opportunity to clarify several details:

1) The WMF Championships is not and will not be recognized by the IOC nor has an affiliation with the IOC or any organization recognized by the IOC. One should not make public statements with misleading information.

2) In actuality, IFMA is a full member of GAISF, an association recognized by the IOC. This is factual information:
 Go to the IOC homepage, www.olympic.org
 Search, International Sports Federations
 Go to, Contact the GAISF
 Click GAISF homepage, www.agfisonline.com
 Click, Members
 Click, Muaythai – details of IFMA as the MuayThai member will be displayed

With regards to the claim that the Asian Championships in India is recognized by the IOC and OCA, and apparently sanctioned by the Olympic Committee of Thailand: this is misinformation (especially as the Olympic Committee of Thailand has no right to sanction an event in India).

FAMA

Furthermore, the organizers of this event have been using the name and logo of the pre-existing Federation of Amateur Muaythai of Asia (FAMA), a member of IFMA, under the presidency of Mr. Karim Massimov who is the current Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Vice President of the Olympic Committee of Kazakhstan. This action is problematic for Asian IFMA member countries and therefore will be presented to the Court of Arbitration of Sport by representatives from these member countries.

World Martial Art Games

This is an event being organized by a group of martial arts organisations who do not have recognition from the IOC or GAISF, which a quick internet search will confirm.
Whereas, the next meeting of the Martial Arts Commission Working Group of GAISF will be held in Thailand on December 5, 2007. Presidents of all 13 Martial Arts recognized by IOC and GAISF will attend and discuss the organization of the GAISF World Martial Art Games 2010, for which MuayThai, under IFMA, will be one of the 13 martial arts.
This meeting will be hosted by IFMA, with support from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Sports Authority of Thailand, and co-chaired by the President of GAISF and the Chairman of the IOC Coordination Committee for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Already 3 meetings have been held – in Seoul, at the NOC Headquarter in Brussels and at the IOC Summer & Winter Olympic/GAISF meeting in Beijing.
As IFMA General Secretary, I was present at all meetings and I was personally part of a coordination meeting at the IOC Headquarters in Lausanne, at which the criteria for the Games was discussed.
This information is available for public viewing through the IFMA, IOC and GAISF web-pages.

Indoor Asian Games and SEA Games
The 2nd Asian Indoor Games will be held in Macau, October 26 – November 3, 2007.
At the 2nd Asian Indoor Games website you will see the IF is the Macau Muaythai Association, which is a member of IFMA.
IFMA is also the controlling body for the 24th SEA Games which will be held in Thailand, December 6 – 15, 2007.
The sport in these games is officially referred to as “Muay”, which we are not in agreement with, as the official sport is “MuayThai” under GAISF, and with which we are proud to be affiliated. On that note, Pioneer’s statement that the Asian Championships in India are apparently recognised by the OCA is questionable, as the OCA does not recognise the sport of Muaythai, but rather the sport of Muay.

Instead of posting misinformation on the net, I ask all our friends in Australia to be more open-minded. Comparing the frequency of events will show one or two WMF events as against 50 IFMA /WMC events in Australia last year. Needless to say, these facts reflect the situation in the world. These people should join us so that Muaythai in Australia can grow stronger and everybody can work under the umbrella of one recognized federation for the benefit of athletes and Australia.

The 2008 IFMA World Championships will host 100 member countries. Presidents of all Martial Arts recognized by the IOC and GAISF will be present. This indeed demonstrates that IFMA has been given full support from all other members of the world sporting community.

We look forward to welcoming everyone to Bangkok in November.

Stephan Fox
General Secretary IFMA



www.ifmamuaythai.org
www.agfisonline.com
www.olympic.org
www.maigoc2007.com
www.seagameskorat2007.com