Dear Karate friends,
The European Championship at Irvine was not only a successful championship but a very good source of experience and new ideas. WUKF Executive Committee, the Referee Team and not at the last all the presidents of our affiliated federations had the opportunity to exchange ideas, proposals or future plans all of these contributing at the WUKF progress.

The Scotland experience leaded to an idea coming from the WUKF president experience that was discussed with almost all presidents presented at the last championship at Irvine and with the Referee Commission as well. Unanimously they approved the idea to change the frame of organizing the European events into a simpler one. Up to now WUKF organized European Championship for seniors and veterans in even years and European Championship for children, cadets and junior sin odd years. This system permitted to the junior categories to have continental championship yearly but the other categories only two years that was not fair for them. Also, some federations have only children teams so they have the opportunity to come to WUKF European Championships only once at two years. In the years that we shall organize the World events outside Europe some European countries will not have the possibility to participate due to the higher costs so they will miss WUKF competitions for one year.

The seniors and veterans championships allow the participation of competitors over 18 years old only and the cadets and especially the children (that are the WUKF future) don?t have the opportunity to participate into same events; they need to see and make idols from our seniors champions this being really frustrating for them.

We checked the statistic of our championships starting from 2005 and was easy to see that European children events (started successfully in 2009 at Constanta, Romania) were organized with more or less 1000 - 1200 competitors and the European seniors championships with more or less 350 - 500 competitors; a very important difference. This difference was important especially for the organizing federation that made nearly same efforts for both events but their incomes were very different. This could lead very easily in the near future to not have applications for organizing European senior championships.

So the only good solution was the one that the WUKF president proposed at Irvine: the European championships will be organized yearly for all ages.

Of course this solution will impose the selection of the sport halls very carefully because we can manage these events in 3 days only using 10-12 tatamis. The incomes that will go to the organizing federations will be 25% from the registration fees of individual and teams events (same like at World events) and will be this way more uniform for all WUKF events. Also due to the high number of participants (we expect to have more or less 1500 - 2000 participants) these incomes will be attractive for the federations that will apply for the organization of European events. And is easy to realize that the WUKF image will increase this way promoting and organizing events with 1500 competitors compared with the ones with 350-400 competitors.

We do believe that we can organize such big events; at Irvine we had more than 70 referees, enough for more than 12 tatamis and we are sure that the referee team will increase not only as number but especially as performance.
The first WUKF European Championship that will be organized using this frame will be at Sheffield, England where we already have a superb sport hall where we can easily fit 12 tatamis. Let?s see the next European championship applications for 2014, we promise you to choose the best location for European countries.

Liviu Crisan
General Secretary