Having a look in the mirror, the last 12 months have been epic with more than 400 tournaments played under WASPA banner. We have seen huge developments in England and great activty in different nations such as Australia, South Africa, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales,... We were glad also to see some tournaments in Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, Malta, Scotland, Spain, France, Greece, Japan, Norway, Singapore, the USA and Switzerland. We also had for the first time a Subbuteo tournament played in Mongolia and we are extremely proud it was played under WASPA banner.
We love the fact tournaments played with the old rules become more and more important. England, Italy and Greece have already old rules tournaments played under WASPA banner and we are sure the development will continue.
The different rankings have been a source of motivation for players and clubs but it's important to repeat once again that ranking points should not be a priority for players. The important things in the WASPA circuit remain the promotion of the game, the connection between players from different games, the creation of dynamic regional circuits and of course the fact that attending tournaments is a good way to practice and to have something more than "training sessions" or "friendly games".
The rankings of clubs have been extremely interesting to follow and now that we have clubs ranked in 3 tables (top clubs, Development league and Conference league), every club can find a good source of motivation to host and play WASPA tournaments.
We must continue to focus on the youth. It's sad that we only have 8 clubs in the "ranking of clubs of juniors" as I believe we have a huge potential to create something much bigger. Never forget that the youth is the future of the game!
Not everything was perfect and I think we have some other points to improve:
- some clubs and players ignore the WASPA handbook and I think it's important to have tournaments announced a few days in avdance in order to give a fair chance to any player to registr in due time.
- some nations still don't support the WASPA circuit. We have seen that WASPA helped the game to grow tremendously in several nations so it is totally unacceptable that some national associations continue to forbif clubs to organize WASPA tournaments. This point makes me extremely angry and upset.
- fair-play remains the key of success. It's extremely rare that we have problems of behavior in tournaments but it should absolutely never happen. Those who play WASPA events should understand that they compete for fun and to promote the game!
- a small detail is that when somebody organizes a tournament, a winner should always be decided. It's extremely complicated to keep records when the organizers says there are tied players at first place (!)
- If you never read the WASPA handbook, you can simply ask me a copy.
Having said all this, I think we can now focus on the future. The WASPA circuit is working really well and it's very exciting to see the enthusiasm of players and clubs. We just really hope we can have tournaments played in more nations in the future! Once again, every national association should see how the English Subbuteo Association is working and how the WASPA circuit has helpd the game in England. This must be a source of inspiration for all other countries!
My last wish of course is to have a big WASPA week-end organized sometimes in the future. We don't need a WASPA world cup but a real big week-end where players from different nations could meet, play a lot of games and enjoy meeting players from different araes. Candidatures are welcome!
Finally, any person ready to help to run the WASPA circuit can of course offer support as it becomes really hard to do everything alone. I'm loonking for help for the following things:
- writing stories about tournaments for the WASPA blog;
- help in development of the WASPA circuit in countries where not many tournaments are yet organized;
- People who can search for partners and possible sponsors.
Thank you once again to all those who have organized tournaments in the last few months. I'm sure 2024 will be extremely good and we'll have many developments in different countries!
Keep on flicking!
Vincent Coppenolle, WASPA organizer!
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