NEW EBA MERCHANDISE PARTNER & STORE

INTRODUCING THE NEW OFFICIAL EBA MERCHANDISE COLLECTION FROM ONBOARD  !!!

Are you ready to take your support for the EBA to the next level ? The brand new EBA Store has just launched with an amazing line up of merchandise that will have you looking like a Pro on and off the table.

Jerseys ~ We've got not one, but four uniquely designed jerseys that will make you stand out in the crowd. 
Midlayers ~ Keep warm and stylish with our all new EBA midlayers, designed to provide maximum comfort and show your unwavering support for the EBA.
Add your name ~ Personalise your purchase by adding your surname on the back of either jersey or midlayer.

Visit our Official EBA store today and grab your favourite top


#ebamerch  #investinyourperformance  #getonboard



 

2024 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS HEAD TO MALTA !!!

The International Blackball Federation Executive Committee is delighted to announce our first ever World Championships will be held in Malta from November 2nd to November 10th, 2024.

We are looking forward to working with Malta to make sure we offer our players the best experience and everything a World Championships should be. We feel that the passion and commitment Malta have towards our sport make them an ideal partner for us to work with.
In a statement, Malta's President Philip Gatt said: "It is an honour and a privilege for Malta to be hosting the biggest event in Blackball, the World Blackball Championships. We intend to showcase how important this game is for our nation and hope to see all the nations around the world unite together in Malta in 2024."
Stronger together !!




2023 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS ACCOMMODATION

For hotel bookings and other related enquiries, please contact the Malta Blackball Federation's Travel Agent, details below. Players must stay in the Dolmen Hotel, Qawra.

Name  ~  Hermina Bonsfield

DOLMEN HOTEL RATES

IN QUAD ROOM  (4x PEOPLE)  =  €45.00 PPPN
IN TRIPLE ROOM  (3x PEOPLE)  =  €47.25 PPPN
IN TWIN ROOM  (2x PEOPLE)  =  €51.50 PPPN
IN TWIN ROOM (1x PERSON)  =  €89.00 PPPN

The above rates are inclusive of daily breakfast and VAT

The price excludes an eco tax of €0.50 per person per night (with a maximum of €5.00) per stay

25% deposit required on booking confirmation. Full balance by 20th September 2023.



THE NATIONS TO WHERE ALL THE TITLES WENT


'A TEAM WINNERS

Mens  -  England
Ladies  -  England
Seniors  -  England
Masters  -  England
Grandmasters  -  Scotland
Under 23 -  Scotland
Under 18 -  England
Under 15 -  Northern Ireland
Learning Disabilities -  Wales

'B' TEAM WINNERS

Mens   Scotland
Ladies  -  England
Seniors  -  Scotland
Masters  -  England
Under 23 - Scotland
Under 18 -  England
Under 15 -  England
Learning Disabilities -  England

INDIVIDUAL WINNERS

Mens  -  Scotland (Liam Dunster)
Ladies  -  England (Kerry Griffiths)
Seniors  -  Scotland (Scott Dunbar)
Masters  -  England (Jason Twist)
Wheelchair  -  England (Aslam Abubaker)
Grandmasters  -  England (Harris Ali)
Under 23 -  Wales (Zak Walters)
Under 18 -  England (Riley Fisher)
Under 15 -  England (Charlie Earnshaw)
Learning Disabilities -  Wales (Thomas Heal)

DOUBLES WINNERS

Wheelchair  -  England (Rodney Brown & Roy Kimberley)
Under 23 -  England (Kyle Cope & Charlie Begley)
Under 18 -  England (Keane Norcup & Rosie Kenrick)
Under 15 -  England (Charlie Earnshaw & Jack Watson)
Learning Disabilities -  England (Lee Ryan & Lance Richardson)

2023 UNDERS & LDs NATIONS CUP OF POOL UNDERWAY !!!

It's just great to back in The Spa, Bridlington, one of, if not the best playing arena in the World for Pool. Good luck to all participating Under 15, Under 18, Under 23 and Learning Disabilities players. All the links as follows -

LIVE FRAME x FRAME SCORING & STATS
1/ Download LeagueAppLive from either the PLAY STORE or the APP STORE
2/ Select EBA, then click on the Podium for all the options 

LIVE STREAMING
Search TYPLive in either YOU TUBE or FACEBOOK and watch for free (2x selected matches)

INDIVIDUAL DRAWS
All Sections draws are hosted on the Northern Ireland Cuescore Webpage at https://cuescore.com/northernirelandpoolassociation










FREE LIVE STREAMING FROM BRIDLINGTON

Great news !!  The EBA will have FREE live streaming from Bridlington during the 2023 Nations Cup. Our partner is TYPLive. Certain tables will be available to watch alongside an Arena Camera that will be up to watch each day.

You will be able to catch the action on Facebook, You Tube and TYPPlayer. More info to follow. 

TYPLive / TYPPlayer


For Live Frame x Frame scoring, fixtures, results, group tables, Knock Out stages etc, download LeagueAppLive and select EBA, then click on the Podium.


 EUROPEAN BLACKBALL
     ASSOCIATION 2023
 NATIONS CUP OF POOL

BRIDLINGTON SPA ARENA
 
 

WELCOME ORKNEY

The EBA Committee would like to welcome Orkney as our newest member of the EBA family. Hope to meet and greet you all very soon guys.

INTERNATIONAL BLACKBALL FEDERATION LAUNCHES

The newly formed International Blackball Federation (IBF) has launched and is growing rapidly.

Members to date are the EBA Members of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, France, Malta, Gibraltar, Belgium, Netherlands, Cyprus, Catalonia, Shetland and
Sweden. These European Nations are joined by Australia, South Africa and Mexico with more to come.

Acting Chairperson - Gillian Rolston (Northern Ireland)
Acting Vice Chairperson - Sylvia Nolan (South Africa)
Treasurer - Phil Hoskins (Wales)
Secretary - Annette Grigg (Australia)


Contact by email - ibfsecretary.2023@gmail.com

Watch this space !!

2023 EBA UK SINGLE TITLES

MENS FINAL
JACK WHELAN (England)  8-2  KHARIM ROBLES LOPEZ (Gibraltar)

LADIES FINAL
EMMA CUNNINGHAM (Northern Ireland)  8-4  JENNY RUMBADO (Gibraltar)

SENIORS FINAL
GERARD HEANEY (Northern Ireland)  8-3  GRAHAM DUNBAR (Scotland)

MASTERS FINAL
MARTIN FISHER (Scotland)  8-6  MARTY GOUDIE (Northern Ireland)

GRANDMASTERS FINAL
ROSS MCINNES (Scotland)  8-7  STEVE WOODIER (England)



 

WELCOME IRELAND

The EBA are delighted to welcome on board our newest member, the Blackball Federation of Ireland. 

We look forward to seeing them grow and will soon be meeting players and officials at their first International event, the 2023 EBA Nations Cup of Pool in Bridlington, England starting 26th March.

Welcome on board Ireland.

Click here to visit the Blackball Federation of Ireland Facebook Page

2023 EBA EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

The EBA European Championships will be held in Malta in 2023 for the very first time. The venue is the Dolmen Hotel, Qawra from 1st - 8th November. Information on hotel bookings in due course.

REIGNING EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS AS FOLLOWS -

MENS  ~  Wales
LADIES  ~  England
SENIORS  ~  Scotland
MASTERS  ~  England
UNDER 23  ~  Scotland
UNDER 18  ~  France
UNDER 15  ~  France
LDs  ~  Scotland

MENS  ~  Scott Gillespie (Scotland)
LADIES  ~  Emma Cunningham (Northern Ireland)
SENIORS  ~  Kevin Seaman (England)
MASTERS  ~  Rob Tait (Wales)
UNDER 23  ~  Cole Bedford (Wales)
UNDER 18  ~  Alexis Klinka (France)
UNDER 15  ~  Geo Edgar (Scotland)
LDs  ~  Jonathan Adams (Scotland)



STATEMENT FROM OUR CHAIRMAN 29TH OCTOBER 2022

Dear Members of the EBA,

On August 2nd 2022 the EBA committee and Nation Reps met and found that the Ireland Blackball Association (IBA) was in breach of Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the EBA Constitution 3 which states 
“All members must recognise the EBA as the only controlling body for the game of Blackball on the continent and must prohibit their players taking part in any national, continental or international competition that has been identified by the EBA as being detrimental to the interests of the Association in performing this task or to the unity of the game of Blackball. In no case will players compete in representation of their countries in events that have not been sanctioned by the EBA.” They breached this because they had announced that they were sending players to a BI Blackball tournament in Morocco which was at the same time as the World Championships held in Albi and this was detrimental to the EBA, who had democratically left BI. The EBA at this point suspended the IBA as EBA members and requested the IBA to retract their attendance to the Blackball event in Morocco within 7 days of receiving the letter, and if they did not do that we would invoke Article 8 (Disciplinary of Members and Expulsion), Section 8.2, Subsection iii giving the EBA the power to expulse the IBA. the Article 8, Section 8.2, Subsection iii states Refusal to comply with the provisions of the constitution and its associated regulations

On the August 10th 2022 the IBA responded saying that the EBA had no authority in sanctioning the IBA in attending the event in Morocco and that the event was not detrimental to the EBA. 
The EBA then responded back on August 21st explaining why the event in Morocco was detrimental to the EBA World Championships in Albi, and how we did have the right to sanction Ireland under our constitution. At this point the EBA invoked “Article 8, Section 8.2, Subsection iii” and expulsed the IBA giving them 2 months to fix the situation and not attend the event in Morocco. We stated that if they attended Morocco we would have no choice but to make their expulsion permanent. There has been no response to date to this letter and as we all know Ireland did attend Morocco and have had the blessing from the IBA.

So it is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that, Ireland Blackball Association (IBA) is no longer a member of the EBA.

Yours in sport

Sean Rumbado, 
EBA Chairman

The European Blackball Association
Secretary: Gillian Rolston
EBA email: europeanbb@outlook.com web site: http://www.eba-pool.org

2023 EBA EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

The EBA are delighted to announce that the Malta Blackball Federation have been successful in their bid to host the 2023 European Championships in November. Dates and more information in due course.

Due to the Covid Pandemic our last European Championship took place in 2019 and our reigning Champions are as follows -


Mens Team  ~  Wales
Mens Individual  ~  Scott Gillespie (Scotland)

Ladies Team  ~  England
Ladies Individual  ~  Emma Cunningham (Northern Ireland)

Seniors Team  ~  Scotland
Seniors Individual  ~  Kevin Seaman (England)

Masters Team  ~  England
Masters Individual  ~  Rob Tait (Wales)

Under 23 Team  ~  Scotland
Under 23 Individual  ~  Cole Bedford (Wales)

Under 18 Team  ~  France
Under 18 Individual  ~  Alexis Klinka (France)

Under 15 Team  ~  France
Under 15 Individual  ~  Geo Edgar (Scotland)

Learning Difficulties  ~  Scotland
Learning Difficulties Individual  ~  Jonathan Adams (Scotland)

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS CONCLUDE

What a fantastic World Championship the FFB (French Federation of Billiards) put on in Albi, France. 18 Nations from across the globe competed tooth and nail on the baize for all the various titles on offer. See below the final Medals table. 

Next up for the EBA is the 2023 Singles Events in Blackpool in February followed by the 2023 Nations Cup in Bridlington. 



UNDERWAY IN ALBI

We are well underway in Albi, France at the 2022 World Blackball Championships. And what a show the FFB have put on so far. A fantastic opening ceremony, an incredible arena with tiered seating, 2 free streaming tables, and an extra 38 pay per view streaming tables costing only 10 euros. Near on 600 players, 18 Nations (many from the EBA), are giving it their best vying for all the titles on offer.

Live streaming at ~ https://tv.kozoom.com/en/event/35301

Fixtures, Frame by frame updates, Group tables and stats on the "LEAGUE APP LIVE" app. Download from Play or App Stores, enter "Eba" and everything is there to view




STATEMENT FROM OUR CHAIRMAN

  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

ALBI COUNTDOWN

At time of posting only 28 days to go to the 2022 World Blackball Championships when 18 Nations will converge in Albi, France. The excitement is building !!!

Early programme details are now out. Go to https://www.wbc2022.org/agenda to view.



THE 2023 EBA NATIONS CUP OF POOL

Please note dates changes for the 2023 Nations Cup of Blackball Pool in Bridlington. Really looking forward to returning to the fantastic Spa Arena, hard to believe last time we were there was in 2019.





2022 WORLD BLACKBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Fantastic Programme of Events to look forward to, watch this space for the upcoming day to day detailed schedule.