Dear Subbuteo friends, it’s time for the season greetings and, as every year, we can have a look in the mirror and see the ups and downs of the WASPA circuit.
2024 was another fantastic year with more than 400 tournaments played under WASPA banner in 23 different countries and on all 5 continents.
The WASPA circuit has helped to develop the game in different emerging nations such as New Zealand or Romania and has also helped to enlarge the base of players in England, South Africa, Australia, Ireland,… or to keep the game alive in some other countries.
The positive comments from many players and clubs motivate me to keep on working for the game and, as someone really told me, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. Therefore, there is no need to make many changes in the near future.
Anyway, I also receive some negative comments from times to times and I think it’s obvious we can work on details. Some of the interesting comments are as follows:
* The rankings are not really about who’s the best player and maybe rankings should have a different system, for instance giving and average of points won by tournament. Honestly, I agree with the comments but it’s just a lot of work to totally change the system and make something much more accurate. After all, rankings are never perfect. Even the FISTF rankings and most national rankings are far to be perfect.
* Some nations don’t support WASPA enough. I think it’s really sad to see nations telling their members not to run WASPA tournaments. We have seen how WASPA events have helped the game to grow in different countries and what happened in England, South Africa, Australia,… must be a real source of inspiration for other nations.
* FISTF President Steve Dettre has always been positive about WASPA and has understood that both WASPA and FISTF must help each other. It’s really sad that FISTF recommendations to have Plate tournaments played under WASPA banner if not accepted by several countries.
* People often ask me “why is WASPA big in England, Australia or South Africa but absent in Portugal, France or South America?” What should I answer? Some nations don’t really need the WASPA circuit because the domestic circuit is big (for instance in Italy) or because there is no real wish to have tournaments for beginners or for weaker players. We really believe WASPA events remain fantastic for people who don’t have time, money or energy to travel long distances to play “big events”. It’s important to have regular regional events to keep some players motivated.
* Role of the delegates: a few years ago, I tried to have delegates in each country to help to develop the WASPA circuit. We must admit the role of delegate has been a failure because most of the time clubs don’t contact their national delegate before hosting a tournament and because delegates don’t really manage to develop the WASPA circuit in their respective countries. Therefore, in the future we will keep a more central way to work, directly between clubs and WASPA.
* Lack of communication of local organizers: it has been pointed out that many organizers have tournaments without announcing their events in advance. This is unacceptable as WASPA tournaments should be open to all players, not only members of the organizing club.
For the future, we will focus on a few things:
* Organizers who don’t announce their tournament in advance should have reduced ranking points awarded. When this happens, a regional tournament will only be awarded points as in a “promotional tournament” (50% of points). If it happens three times during the same season, no ranking points will be awarded.
* The youth: everybody is aware that the youth is the priority for the future. It is really sad that only a few clubs manage to be involved in the “Junior ranking of clubs” while some elite clubs are no even in the WASPA rankings but mange to send several very young players to the world cup every year. We really need to do something to have more young players involved in WASPA tournament before playing in international events.
* WASPA blog: we hope more organizers will send reports and pictures of their tournaments so that we can publish more good stories.
Before the end of this long message, I would love to give my “personal top 5 highlights” of the year and congratulate a few people who do an amazing job for the sport:
* The English Subbuteo Association for remaining the most active nation in the WASPA circuit, for helping to create new clubs and for running amazing tournaments, including the national league of clubs. Some players in the UK play for different clubs in the FISTF and WASPA circuits but all players continue to respect their clubs (WASPA) and teams (FISTF).
* The club of Rebels Genova in Italy for the amazing job with the kids. This club is a real source of inspiration, and they run regular events under WASPA banner but also continue to travel to big events to gain experience and to become excellent players.
* The group of players in Bucharest, Romania as they are proving that even being a nation with no real history of Subbuteo table football, they can build something really nice. Cezar Stoilescu has done an amazing job to promote the game in Bucharest and managed to have new players interested. The next step of course is to have the club growing and to have more tournaments and competitive games.
* The Northern Line Flickers in New Zealand. The group in Auckland has been amazing in the last few months, started playing in a pub, then organizing some WASPA events, later even hosting the first FISTF tournament in the country and now planning to have a team for the tournaments to come in Australia. That’s exactly how things should be, growing step by step!
* All local organizers who keep the faith in what they are doing, sometimes with a lot of personal satisfaction, sometimes with the frustration to have less players than expected. We need local organizers to build a strong future! The faith of local organizers keeps me motivated to continue to run the WASPA circuit
Well, that’s all for now, that’s for the reading and keep in mind I stay at your disposal if you have any question regarding the WASPA circuit!
Have a fantastic year 2025!
Vincent Coppenolle, WASPA organizer, vincentcoppenolle@gmail.com
