World Confederation of Billiard Sports

The World Confederation of Billiard Sports (WCBS, often also known as the World Confederation of Billiard"s" Sports) [http://www.billiard-wcbs.org WCBS official website] , accessed May 12, 2007. The logo on the site uses the singular form of the name, while copies of the organisation's founding documents on the site use the plural version.] is the international umbrella organization encompassing the major cue sports (billiards-type games), including carom billiards, pool games of several varieties, and snooker.

Role

The primary aim of WCBS is to intensify its strive to have billiards-family sports become medal events in as many of the established multiple-sports events as possible, both on a regional and a world level, while having billiards sports be included in the Olympic Games remains the ultimate goal of the WCBS.

The WCBS is a platform for its subordinated bodies, namely: the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB); the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA); and the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) and its amateur counterpart, the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF), to work closely together, with the independence of each highly maintained and respected. As a result, unlike other international sports organizations, the WCBS does not set the rules of the soprts, nor organize any international competition itself. Instead, these functions are carried out by the nominally subordinate organizations.

History

Before the establishment of WCBS in 1992, there was no any organization in charge of all cue sports. It is, as well as the point that cue sports did not comply with the definition of sports which was valid at this point in time, the main obstacle for the approval of including cue sports into the Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), despite many attempts that have been made in order for billiards to possibly achieve the Olympic recognition since 1950s. In 1985, André Gagnaux from Switzerland became the new president of the UMB, the world governing body for carom billiards. In order to achieve Olympic recognition, he contacted the WPBSA, the governing body of professional snooker, to discuss the possibility of forming a governing body for all cue sports (there was no world governing body for pool at that time). Nonetheless his first attempt failed as he could not impress the WPBSA why it would be so important for them to achieve the IOC recognition, and what a possible cooperation with the UMB could do in order to further their goals.

Following the founding of the WPA as the international governing body for pool and their successful organization of the first ever WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 1990 in sports, Gagnaux again decided to contact the WPBSA. This time he was more successful. In order to fulfill the conditions set by the IOC, the representatives of the governing body of the three main cue sports, namely carom billiards, pool and snooker, convened on August 30, 1990, at a historic meeting in Bristol, UK, with the WPBSA as the host. It is the first time representatives of the three divisions gathered around one table. As a result it was decided to form the World Confederation of Billiard Sports (WCBS), an umbrella organization encompassing all billiards sports, and a three-man committee consisting of Mr. Gagnaux for Carom, Jorgen Sandman for Pool and Mark Wildman for Snooker was appointed in order to work out the first constitution, to serve as a guideline for this new body. The following 18 months were spent on this work, which was somewhat complicated since the idea was to enable the various disciplines to work closely together, while maintaining their independence. The inaugural General Assembly of the WCBS was held in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland on January 25, 1992. A board consisting of 9 delegates was elected with three representatives from each founding member: the UMB, the WPA and the new World Snooker Federation (WSF), formed as a cooperation between the WPBSA and the IBSF.

The year 2003 was a stormy one following a domestic dispute within the WCBS. In September 2002 the WPBSA advertised to the IBSF that it was no longer interested in a cooperation with the latter, and WPBSA also automatically withdrew from the WCBS. For whatever reason, the IBSF failedFact|date=April 2007 to share this information with the WCBS board, and it was only due to rumors that the WCBS finally got wind of the situation. Having failed to impress the IBSF about the importance of discussing this new situation, a board meeting was held in Bottrop, Germany in March 2003. The IBSF representatives, although properly invited, did not show up for this meeting.Fact|date=April 2007 This did not prevent the WCBS from forming a decision to declare the Snooker component of the WCBS temporarily vacant. However, since the WSF had not ever existed as anything more than a cooperation between the WPBSA and the IBSF, and that following the WPBSA withdrawal, no actual WSF organization could be founded. The IBSF, not especially appreciative of this decision, turned to the IOC Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland on May 30, 2003. The CAS delivered its final decision on January 20, 2004, and the WCBS won this case on all counts. Since then the WPBSA has returned to the WCBS, now in its own right as a direct member. IBSF remains a member as well, and the WSF has dissolved.

Works and accomplishments

GAISF membership

In 1992, the first goal for the newly formed WCBS was to gain recognition by the IOC and membership with the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). In October 1993 the WCBS for the first time was invited as observers to the GAISF Congress and General Assembly in Lahti, Finland. However, the WCBS application failed to make it into the agenda of the AGM, and therefore the two WCBS representatives at this meeting, André Gagnaux and Jorgen Sandman, were confined to listen and learn. When in October 1994 the GAISF AGM took place in Monte Carlo, Monaco, the WCBS application was on the agenda. Led by the President for Judo, who questioned if billiards really could be considered a sport, a long discussion got started with many speakers voicing their opinion on the matter, some in favor and others against. A proposal was formulated, which stated that the GAISF needed to define what really constitutes a sport first, and thus the agendum had to be tabled a year later.

Meanwhile also the IOC had responded to the application for recognition by stating that the WCBS still was too new as an umbrella body for billiards sports, therefore a possible IOC recognition could not be granted for a few years. The IOC also recommended the WCBS to apply for membership with the GAISF - "whilst this is not a prerequisite, the IOC would look favorably on a WCBS membership with the GAISF."Citequote

In October 1995 the GAISF Congress and General Assembly was held in Seoul, Korea, and since then André Gagnaux was ill and hospitalized, the WCBS delegation was led by Jorgen Sandman, who was accompanied by Nigel Oldfield (GBR) and Massimino Del Prete (ITA). This time, the WCBS had learnt from the experience of failures in 1993 and 1994, and hence had better prepared to presente its case. Mainly this was done in form of a glossy brochure titled "Right on Cue", which was distributed among all of the delegates and that in a professional way informed the meeting about the WCBS and billiards sports. Besides, the WCBS also hosted a cocktail reception for the around 500 attending officials. At the 1995 AGM in Seoul, the WCBS finally became a provisional member of the GAISF. Any new organization entering the GAISF must first go through the stage of being a provisional member for two years, and then eventually be accepted as a full member with voting rights.

IOC Recognition and participation in the World Games

Thanks to WCBS's effort, in July 1996, the IOC decided to grant the WCBS a provisional recognition for two years, and in September of the same year the WCBS became a member of the Association of Recognized IOC International Sports Federations (ARISF). An application for membership with the International World Games Association (IWGA) was also filed shortly thereafter, and at the 1997 IWGA AGM it was decided that the WCBS would become a member of this association as of January 1, 1998.

On 5 February 1998, the IOC granted the WCBS its outright recognition, and by that it was then clear that billiards sports is treated as one sport among others. Later on in the same year the GAISF accepted the WCBS as a full member and the IWGA decided to include billiards sports into the program of the 2001 Akita World Games.

The WCBS also applied for the inclusion in the 2004 Summer Olympics. Among 15 other sports that all of them had applied for inclusion, the Greek Olympic Committee decided to scrutinize five, among them billiards sports. Finally they selected two sports out of the five, with billiards sports ending up as their third choice.

Cue sports in other events

Apart from the 2001 World Game, cue sports is included in many different important multi-sports events, like World Youth Games in Moscow and the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games. There were 10 medals of cue sports in the 1998 Asian Games. The participation at the 2002 Asian Games in Pusan, Korea was later on in a bit of jeopardy, mostly due to financial concerns that the host city had, but in the end again billiards sports competed for 10 medals, followed by the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

The WCBS also tried to include billiards sports in the Commonwealth Games. While the WCBS has been accepted as a member of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), the attempt has not yet succeeded.

Attempts from WCBS are also made for the inclusion into other events like the Pan-American Games, the All-Africa Games as well as the Mediterranean Games.

References

External links

* [http://www.billiard-wcbs.org WCBS Official Homepage]