The participation here in Istanbul, however, for the 12th Olympiad has achieved a new record with 72 Open teams, 42 Women’s teams (2 more than in 2000) and 30 Seniors teams (6 more), i.e., 74 different countries with another 6 in the Transnational making a total of 80 which number should, however, be compared with 120 in the Chess Olympiad.

We are delighted to welcome some new countries playing here for the first time.

From Europe – Bosnia and Georgia
From Asia – Korea
From Central America – Costa Rica
We are missing many member countries that participated in Maastricht, such as Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Slovenia, Ukraine, Jamaica, Tanzania and Thailand.
This means that we have a potential of more than 80 Open teams, at least 48 Women’s teams and 36 Seniors teams and some other countries in the Transnational, reaching about 100 which is a better figure to show to the IOC.

We can no longer hide the problem we face with the EBL which decided to reverse its championship schedule. It is clear that some countries decided to participate in the Olympiad and therefore could not afford to attend the European Championships as well. We have here in Istanbul four more Open teams than in the European Championships (Georgia, Russia, Cyprus and Lebanon) but we are missing the Faroe Isles. Also, we have five more Women’s teams (Bulgaria, Greece, Russian, Switzerland and Wales) but we have lost the Czech Republic, the Faroe Isles, Iceland and Lebanon. In the Seniors field we have lost Norway, the Czech Republic and Finland and gained Austria, Belgium, Spain, Turkey and Liechtenstein.

I understand the financial burden behind the EBL’s decision and I am wondering if going back to the previous schedule wouldn’t be a better solution, with the odd years for the European Teams Championship, the Bermuda Bowl, the Venice Cup, the Seniors Bowl and the World Open Transnational; the first of the even years being for the European and World transnational championship and the Olympiad; the second even year being the World and European Transnational Championships with the EBL and the WBF sharing the organization and profit of both Open Transnational Championships.

I know that the Executives of both the WBF and the EBL need to examine this idea but I am convinced that it will help the national finances and thus participation in our championships.

This is, of course, valid also for all the zones. And I repeat that we must give priority to the Olympiad before any zonal championship, as the Olympiad is our showcase on which we are judged as far as the popularity of our sport is concerned, which may integrate the Intellympic Games that we are still negotiating, and which is also linked to

The membership

We are still increasing the number of countries belonging to the WBF. Some new ones are expected in addition to the ones mentioned above.
From Europe we can consider Albania, Armenia and Slovakia. From Central America, Cuba will certainly join in 2005 and from Asia we may have Azerbaijan, Mongolia putting us at about 130 member countries.
This would be very satisfying if the membership within the National Bridge Organizations was following a positive trend. Apparently, this is not at all the case if we consider the number of members declared by the NBOs, some of which we know are deliberately false.

On the attached list you will see that some of our members are not only deliberately misleading us when they give us a round figure – which implies that they are being economical with the truth – but others are, for one reason or another and mainly for financial purposes, totally deceiving.
Beyond this aspect, what worries me most is that in many countries, bridge players are getting older and older and thus the bridge population is declining year after year.

I offered my services and my expertise (I am sorry for having to say this) in development and marketing but both were refused, probably because people either believe they are competent or are uninterested. (For those of you who would like to try something, attached you will find a proposal for club managers.)
The result is there for all to see – fewer and fewer members. When I warn that bridge is dying you only have to look at your own figures to see that I am, unfortunately, right. To reverse this situation in the long term, I have been saying for years how important it is to

Teach Bridge in Schools

Please remember that juniors and pupils are not subject to any dues. It is very sad to see that even though this membership is free, we have only very few if not zero.

After Montreal, we offered to visit any country needing help in this field and Sabine Auken, Sharon Osberg and myself were at your disposal.
I also sent out a lot of documents and information and for what?
There was no answer, no queries apart from England who we know made some effort and Spain did succeed with their Ministry of Education for the time being. Let’s hope some interest in the future.
I am quite proud to have managed to convince Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to help in this field and Sharon Osberg is now in charge of such a programme with a grant of $1 million, unfortunately reserved for the US for the time being. Let’s hope this can be extended in due course to poorer countries.

Saint Lucia , in the Caribbean, is negotiating a TV teaching programme in which we will help in any way we can.
We can do no more for you than we are already doing, including the UNESCO agreement. Help yourselves and God will help you.

This is exactly what we are doing ourselves for

Our Finances

As long as some rich and big federations continue to refuse to contribute in a better way to our action for the good of bridge, we will manage with the present fees although these are incorrect.
But we have ensured some sponsorship in order to get ourselves back into good financial shape. As usual, this must be considered under the 4-year period where we got $2 million between 1995/1998 and $1.6 million between 1999 and 2002. We will certainly be close to that figure for 2003-2006 using part of this money in broadcasting on TV our main championships in order to increase our popularity.

The goal to be achieved is to recover our assets of $1 million. With the help of our excellent Treasurer and friend, Jean-Louis Derivery, who I thank and congratulate for his help, we will do it.

IOC Relationships

In 2003, we were in Madrid and in 2004 in Lausanne for the annual meetings of the IOC together with the other Recognized International Federations.

It is still not clear whether the IOC will open the door of the Olympic Games for golf, rugby, karate and squash, all of which are under examination, but not for mind sports. This is what we heard in the ARISF meeting where all the other non-Oympic sports were gathered (see the brochures at your disposal). Nevertheless, the World Bridge Federation has been confirmed officially as an International Sport Federation under the new criteria decided and defined by the IOC, which is not the case for some other federations.

You will find the letter attached and may use this for any purpose in your own country.
This may really help the NBOs who are not yet recognized by their own National Olympic Committee as President Rogge is still recommending the NOCs to accept bridge.
Our friend, Mazhar Jafri, worked together with the President of Zone 4, Ghassan Ghanem, for the inclusion of bridge in the Asian Games, while the Chess federation is also knocking on the door in Africa and America.

I am still working on the Intellympics idea and programme.
You may remember that we organized a meeting last year in Monaco with Chess, Go and Draughts and, later, saw them in Lausanne where the

GAISF decided to take the Intellympics under its umbrella.

For my part, I am very grateful to Jean-Claude Schupp for his contribution in this field but it is clear that we will need the blessing of the IOC and the full cooperation of all the Mind Sports involved.

On 8th October, we had a meeting with the Chess, Draughts and Go Federations at the GAISF in Monaco, in the presence of Marc Hodler.
To go further with this Intellympics, I will ask Marc Hodler and Jean-Claude Schupp to get the approval of the IOC for the use of the name, which is extremely important in my view, and to specify if we may organize this event in the year following that of the Olympic Summer or Winter Games.

The General Assembly of the GAISF unanimously approved (by acclamation) the World Bridge Federation as a full member of GAISF. The GAISF certificate is also at your disposal.
These two events show that the discussion of whether or not bridge is a sport must be closed.

If you need further proof, look at what is going on with

FISU

This International University Sport Federation has also decided to recognize bridge as a sport. Here, we are organizing – starting on Monday – the 2nd official World University Bridge Championships under the auspices of FISU.

I must confess that although the process is a little heavy, this is both extremely promising for the future and also a little disappointing at present.
Even though we offered very cheap accommodation - $45 per day per person full board and accommodation and no entry fees – we have very few teams (16) despite all the efforts and help given by Geert Magerman and ourselves. You must again realize that we cannot do everything ourselves. You have to play your own part in the game. If the reason for this very small attendance is that many countries do not have students or teachers between the ages of 17 and 28, the situation is really desperate.
In a few minutes you will hear from Geert Magerman, our ‘University Man’, who will be addressing you and making a plan for the future. However, I do not believe that we can improve on it without your cooperation.

You must be aware that if we do not work today for our children, bridge will just disappear in the battle of competition between other sports.

In order to fight against this ‘announced disaster’, I really recommend that you support every initiative in favour of

The Youth

After many difficulties, we managed to relocate the World Youth Team Championship in Paris last year.
That was a great success and I would like to thank the French Bridge Federation and the Société Générale Bank for their help.

This year we launched a new School Team Championship for under-20s in New York, as well as an Individual Championship.
The Société Générale and the ACBL both helped not only with these events, which were quite successful, but also helped the juniors themselves to attend them. I know that Panos Gerontopoulos and his Youth Committee are working on new projects and there is no doubt that we have to consider our Youth Programme as a priority. The Société Générale will continue to help us in the next few years, as they have done for the last two years, as will e-Bridge WordWinner.

To try to summarize our actions:

I believe that we owed a service to the NBOs and that we did this by:

So, from now on, I believe that during the next few years we have to manage the WBF carefully with a view to maintaining harmony between our members and to the safety of our financial position.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that we have to bear in mind that our structure must be adapted to the new world.
You will see that we have to respond clearly to the IOC on certain matters – women, youth, doping, etc. – in order to retain our status of Recognised International Sports Federation.

For that, I made some suggestions in Montreal for

Changes in WBF Constitution and By-Laws

I would remind you of what I wrote in my report in Maastricht.
We need to give careful consideration to the purpose of having Zones: the political organization to send representatives to the WBF Executive; the geographical structure to organize zonal championships and send qualified teams to world championships; and finally, the financial melting pot.

However, we also need to pay special attention to a more democratic process for electing the members of the Executive Council of the WBF and its main officers – President, Vice-Presidents, Treasurer and Secretary.
According to other comparable international federations, the president of each zone (8 in our case) is automatically a member of the board and the other members can be elected by the Congress with a quota per zone and ensuring a minimum of parity. The President and the officers are elected by the Congress.
Personally, I would add that certain bridge VIPs could be nominated by the president and the board to add their experience and expertise.

In all of this, one might also wonder whether it would be normal for there to be a scale to the number of votes according to the number of members in any country which, incidentally, is already in force in Europe.

Because we know that the Zones are unfortunately quite reluctant to make any geographical or political changes, we did not go further on this subject. Does that mean that we have to give up or find a consensus on a minimum of changes (parity, youth, etc.)?
It remains that we have agreed to move the WBF incorporation from New York to Lausanne, Switzerland and this has been done.