The Ranks of World Rugby Grow -- Federation Focus

Presented by the International Weightlifting Federation. Click here for more on the IWF.

(ATR)World Rugby welcomes three new full members and two associate members into the fold.

Burkina Faso, Iran and Laos were officially awarded full member status at a virtual Council meeting on Wednesday. Nepal and Panama join as associate members, bringing the global World Rugby membership to 128 unions.

"Increasing the interest, participation and executive positions for women in rugby is a key objective for World Rugby so it is particularly pleasing to see the leading roles being played by women in both the Burkina Faso and Iran unions," World Rugby president Bill Beaumont said in a statement.

"As members of the World Rugby family we will work with these unions to provide them with continuous support and a solid framework to accelerate the growth of the sport in their countries."

In addition to the new members, it was confirmed that Cameroon has been reinstated as a member.

Also this week, World Rugby announced that Joël Jutge would return to the federation as Head of Match Officials effective in January.

The former international referee, who worked at World Rugby from 2012-15, rejoins the organization from European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR).

Jutge will be responsible for overseeing the performance management and development of international match officials – men and women – working to help them to deliver high quality refereeing performances and to prepare for Rugby World Cups in 2021 in New Zealand and 2023 in France.

The Rugby World Cup 2021 draw will take place on November 20 from Auckland.

AIBA Presidential Campaign Builds

The election for the next AIBA president is 24 days away and this week some of the seven candidates ramped up their campaigns.

Suleyman Mikayilov of Azerbaijan and Umar Kremlev of Russia both released their manifestos and launched websites on Monday.

Mikayilov’s full manifesto is available on his website, which also includes a video address to national federations.

Kremlev’s official website, which includes his manifesto and the Trumpian slogan "Make AIBA Great Again", is here.

Boris van der Vorst of the Netherlands also has a website, where it says his election program is coming soon.

The other four candidates in the running are Bienvenido Solano (Dominican Republic), Anas Al Otaiba (United Arab Emirates), Ramie Al-Masri (Germany) and Mohamed Moustahsane (Morocco).

Moustahsane has been serving as the interim president since March 2019, when another interim president Gafur Rakhimov was forced to resign.

The AIBA Congress will be held virtually on December 12 and 13. Only 142 of the 200 national federations are eligible to vote and participate. Those missing out failed to pay their dues to AIBA on time.

The Dominican Republic could still attend the congress depending on the outcome of its case currently before the federation’s disciplinary commission.

Besides choosing a president, the congress must also vote on major reforms designed to get the federation back into the good graces of the IOC.

The IOC suspended AIBA in June 2019 based upon corruption, mismanagement of finances, breaches of ethics, non-transparent governance, judging issues and deficiencies in the anti-doping fight.

United World Wrestling Inks Streaming Deal for USA

United World Wrestling has signed a four-year digital streaming partnership with subscription video streaming service FloSports to be its primary media rights partner for the United States.

The deal, which begins in January 2021, calls for FloSports to stream 95 championships including the Beach Wrestling World Series, Grappling World Championships, and more than 70 freestyle, Greco-Roman, and women’s wrestling events during the four years. The deal does not include linear rights.

"We are confident in FloSports' ability to promote wrestling in the United States," said United World Wrestling Commercial Operations and Communications Director Gordon Templeman in a statement.

"They will be an important partner and we know that they will deliver fans top-quality content from the international wrestling community."

The agreement is the latest in a large list of linear and streaming deals lined up by United World Wrestling in recent years including Nippon TV (Japan), Eurosport, and SportySolutionz (India).

Presented by the International Weightlifting Federation. Click here for more on the IWF.

Written by Gerard Farek

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