Biennial change for World Softball Championships

MOSAH MOKGANEDI
Correspondent | Friday November 4, 2011 00:00

The decision came after a meeting which ended in America on Sunday resolved the four-year period was too long.ISF president (Africa) Marumo Morule, who is also the president of the Botswana Softball Association (BSA) and attended the meeting, returned home on Monday.

Marumo said the meeting agreed that unlike in the past World Championships, two competitions for different age groups should be held simultaneously. 'We are yet to determine how that will happen,' Morule said. ISF has four world competitions for senior women, girls, boys and senior men. Morule said the decision was informed by the fact that softball has not been included in the 2012 London Olympic Games. The meeting also reviewed the ISF constitution and the technical code on how other competitions could be run in future.

Morule said delegates discussed the format of World Championship qualifiers. He said there was consensus that countries should be allowed to participate without any qualifiers. The meeting agreed that there are many softball competitions and holding qualifiers has proved expensive for the poorer countries.

'Countries use a lot of money because if they are not playing in the qualifiers, they would be taking part in some competition,' he said. Morule disagreed that allowing nations to take part without qualifying rounds will lower standards. 'We will come up with a way of seeding teams for the competition,' he said. Morule said the softball world body's major focus at the moment is to convince the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to bring softball back as an Olympic sport. Softball is among the eight sport codes that have been listed for re-consideration for the Olympics.

Meanwhile, Morule said the preparations for the World Under-19 Softball Championships scheduled for South Africa in December are progressing well although there are challenges. He said they have been able to get financial assistance from the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) to buy the required equipment. However, getting players together for training camps has been a challenge, as most of them are students sitting for final examinations. The team will not play any international friendly matches before the competitions, but will only play local teams. Morule said if possible the team would play practice matches against World Championships opponents before the tournament kicks off.