Dear EBA Members/Pool fraternity
I would like to apologise for not having come out with an official
statement, prior to this time. However your National Associations
have been kept aware of all proceedings at all times, in fact all the
major decisions were made after online meetings with representatives
from all EBA members who voted on how to move forward.
First let
me try
to reconstruct
a timeline
of what
has transpired
over the
last months
regarding EBA, BI
and the World Championships. These World Championships were awarded
to the FFB/France by BI in early
2021.
In the time between that awarding of the World’s and March/April
2022 there was a tremendous turmoil in the BI Board following many
strange and unconstitutional decisions and actions by said board.
This finally escalated to the point where board member Ross McInness
was unconstitutionally removed from the BI board.
It was at this time around March/April 2022 that the EBA, following
much discussion and communication between its executive committee and
representatives from all EBA member nations, decided to (hopefully
temporarily) resign its membership from BI. This resignation was very
swiftly followed by an announcement from Mark Cottingham that the
“official” World Championships would now be held in Morocco on
the exact same dates as the actual World Championships in Albi hosted
by the FFB.
Shortly after
this announcement
Mark and
Samantha Cottingham
decided to
resign their
positions as
chairman and treasurer of BI. This by default left Kevin Byrne as
acting president, Annette Grigg as secretary and Mycherif Zine El
Abidine as the only board member of BI. At the request of Kevin Byrne
the EBA decided to meet with the BI board once again and hear them
out. At this meeting and later
in writing both Kevin Byrne and Mycherif assured the EBA that there
would be no event in Morocco and this was all coming from Mark
Cottingham who had now resigned.
We took everything onboard and after further discussions with all the
EBA member nations it was decided that the BI board did not want to
satisfy our wishes to remove all destructive elements within BI and
it was decided to stand by our decision to leave BI.
Kevin Byrne resigned his position within BI shortly after, leaving by
default Mycherif as the acting President of BI, Annette resigned too
shortly after and the Australian Blackball International Federation
(ABIF) departed BI aswell. That left only Africa and Mycherif who
became the acting president, acting secretary and acting treasurer at
that point on the board. Any reasonable thinking person would
consider THE ONLY course of action for BI to hold an extraordinary
AGM as soon as possible to work towards filling all the available
seats on the board.
But instead, lo and behold here we are with Morocco holding an event
at the same time that the FFB are hosting the sanctioned World
Championships. If that is not being counter productive and trying to
undermine blackball and doing what is clearly NOT best for the
players we don’t know what is.
So, for reasons beyond us a decision was made by the remains of an
organisation with no elected board members to host a tournament in
direct conflict with the World Championship the FFB is organising.
One would think that by now that BI would have been lost and the WPA
would have been asking questions. But no its seems this is ok, and
its ok to bring in new members without holding an AGM/EGM like the
newly formed Australian body who claim to be the Oceania Body as did
the ABIF under the reign of Mark & Samantha Cottingham.
Enough on that, we hope that it would be clear to anyone that EBA
could no longer be expected to stay a member of or consider
re-joining BI with the entire board falling apart multiple times and
yet no AGM to re-fill said board.
Back
to the current situation with the Irish Blackball Association, the
IBA.
The IBA, like all the EBA members was supposed to only send teams to
The World Championships in Albi as this was the decision made by the
EBA members. Recently however the IBA have said to the
EBA that they have to send teams to Morocco because the government
forces them to attend official tournaments (we requested proof of
this which we have yet to see).
IBA have made a point in saying that the Official World Championships
was always running from 8th – 15th of
October, which is correct and when the EBA left BI and all of the
things I have mentioned above happened there was no longer a BI body
and all of its former members were attending the World Championships
in Albi. But because the AAPA were not invited to the Albi event (as
they are deemed by the EBA of not being democratic and are a
disruptive force in the promotion of BB under their current
leadership) the event in Morocco was put on and the dates were set on
purpose the same as Albi in an attempt to undermine the EBA and FFB,
the AAPA could have put on any other dates but they chose conflict
instead.
So in response to the IBA’s statement, the real reason why the EBA
has temporarily expelled the IBA from its ranks is for contravening
the EBA constitution, for attempting to undermine the EBA and going
against the vote to leave BI by attending the Morocco event. They
have under the constitution 2 months as from the 22nd of
August 2022 to rectify this situation at which time the EBA will
review the situation and either stand by its decision or revoke the
expulsion, in accordance to the EBA constitution.
I know not all of the IBA members stand by the decision of their
committee and it is a sad situation we are in currently. The EBA has
always been a family and like all families we have our disputes and I
believe this is one of them. I hope that there will be more members
of the IBA asking questions now of their committee and they will do
the right thing to rectify this situation so we can have a family
reunion soon and be united as we were before and always have been in
promoting Blackball and showing the world that we are a strong
family.
Yours in Sport
Sean Rumbado
EBA Chairman
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