During 15 years of my career in armwrestling, I have never witnessed lawlessness, hatred and atrocities, such as those that I have observed during the EAF Congress in 2015 in Bulgaria. What do I mean by "lawlessness and hatred."

You all know that by the decision of the WAF, or rather, by the decision of two people in the VAF, Alexander Filimonov was deprived of the right to vote, as well as suspended from his duties. It was obvious that we had to solve all the problems at the EAF Congress 2015.

Assen and Mircea thoroughly prepared for the Congress, and all that was written in their e-mail on Filimonov was reinforced with concrete actions.

Just a day before the start of the Congress, they sent a notice of a meeting of the Directorate by E-mail to all members of the Directorate. The European Federation Directorate meeting has never happened just about 2 hours before the start of Congress. I do not know what questions Directorate considered as not received information on the e-mail as well as EAF Vice-president Marjan Capla. Assen occasionally ran on him in the corridor of Bulgarian hotel and said that in a moment a Directorate meeting would start. Marjan Capla refused to discuss it with him, as we did not have a quorum. But as it turned out, they found a quorum. Absent due to illness for the past several years the chief referee Hari Naskali, who was absent this time also, was informed over the phone about Assen’s vision of the situation, and they have made decisions by a majority vote in this format - Secretary of the EAF, a vice president, Chief Referee and Assen Hadzhitodorov. This - the first iniquity, committed before the Congress. They stated that Alexander Filimonov is not eligible to attend the  EAF Congress. Before this Congress was visited by almost everybody, as we have tried to make the work of the Federation as open as possible.

But the guys have gone even further. In front the meeting room door they put security, launched admission regime, and Alexander Filimonov, who came first to the Congresses Hall door, was said that he had no right to go in there. Goodbye!

Moreover, the armpower.net operator Marcin Koszalka was also not allowed to enter the room, he was said that that was a "private meeting" (!!!) and  that the meeting is closed to the press. Despite the fact that Igor Mazurenko is the director of public relations and relations with media and television, the man with the camera was not allowed.

Also, they did not let a correspondent from Russia in.

Outrages were not over. The agenda of the Congress, of course did not include the problematic issues and discussions. The issue of Assen Hadzhitodorov temporary suspension was also absent in the agenda of the Congress. They went even further. They invited the Bulgarian lawyer, whom I know personally for 15 years and who is a personal friend of Assen Hadzhitodorov. This man, at one time, registered the Statute of the European Federation for us. Now he acted as Alexander Filimonov prosecutor without the presence of Alexander at the Congress. I believe that it is a scandal that a man facing charges from the mouth of a lawyer, despite the fact that the accused was not even allowed in the room and even was not given the opportunity to respond to the charges - I even do not mention having a lawyer from his side. It is a complete profanation.

Congress agenda items are not worth of mentioning now. Most of the items for discussion at the EAF Congress belonged to the World Federation competence, not to the European Federation. Here are some of them:

Changes in the rules of refereeing. Who but the World Federation can change the rules of refereeing - it is its direct competence.

Changes in EAF Constitution. How can we change the constitution, if the constitution is adhered to the World Federation Constitution?

In short, a complete nonsense and idiocy parade was organized at this Congress.

Then there was more and better. President of the Hungarian Federation - a great friend of Assen Hadzhitodorov - took a word and reported that in 2024 there will be 4 candidates for the Olympic Games - France, Germany, Turkey and the United States. In this regard, he suggested a creation of a «working group» of 3-4 people that will be lobbying the promotion of our sport discipline for Paralympics as a demonstration sport discipline. I asked him, why do we need to create such a group today if we do not know which country will win the contest? He replied that they had in Hungary a very strong lobby and so on. As a result, they talked a little and removed the item from the agenda.

The most important paragraph of the discussion, we wanted to know and hear was a score keeping software for the event. Hadzhitodorov’s answer was as follows: the new program is not a new program but an improved version of an existing program meeting WAF demands.

I asked, what engine your program was built on? He said that no matter what engine, it is just an improved version. I said that no one knows how your program works as you haven’t introduced it to anybody and kept it secret. He said that the problem was that the program which was applied at previous championships was made by Mazurenko Armwrestling Promotion and was not transferred to the World Federation, which is the risk that Mazurenko may at any time revoke the WAF user license. To this I replied that any product, whether it is a computer program, or, for example, music always has the author's signature. No matter who uses the program, it always has references to who produced it.

If it is, for example, Photoshop, it doesn’t matter who it is used by, it is still Photoshop since it was developed by a Photoshop team. And any program license contains the author's name and is copyrighted, and no one has the right to take it away. But Assen did not understand, repeating several times that they would use the new program, as it is more in line with the requirements of WAF.

There were scandalous moments. EAF has two official languages which ​​are English and Russian. There was no Russian interpreter. Assen made all translations personally. The way he translated merely resulted in shock. He does not speak Russian sufficiently. Although the Regulation clearly states that the translation has to be provided. The representative of Hungary did not speak any English or Russian. He spoke Hungarian, Mircea translated into English, and someone else translated into Russian. It was complete orgy.

Another thing. Proxy parade. They got in touch with countries that did not participate in the championship, took their proxy - voices that have assigned to themselves. Estonia, Moldova, Italy, Macedonia and others. They got 7 votes, which were kept in a pack in their hands. They did everything so that the Congress was behind them. People were not given the word, they discussed only the things they wanted. The lawyer said a few words that Alexander Filimonov was wrong, referred to the Constitution, and so on. Then it was over. Congress was finished.

In short, guys are going to succeed.

Dear friends, next year we have elections. Judging by the behavior of the members of the Federation, we can conclude that some members of the Federation were bribed a flagrant manner. Many members did not understand anything at all, because all was spoken English and Hungarian, and many things were not translated into Russian at all. This is a complete standards mismatch. First Vice-President was no allowed to the room, the person who brings in the biggest team to the championships. It goes beyond all imaginable limits. This suggests that the current Championship will be held under their flag, and we’ll see no changes this year. Changes will be only after the elections. The most interesting is that the next year European Championship will take place in Romania, and the World Champoinship - in Bulgaria. They thought of everything.

I hope that members of the EAF will think about what is happening in our Federation. Many members, such as the Swedish Federation, the Federation of Norwegian and others realized that such congresses make efficient discussion impossible. Next year there will be elections, and each member of the EAF has to decide whether we need such a despot as a president of the federation, and take appropriate action. To date, the Congress held in Bulgaria is a fight against windmills. We could not make any offers. The most interesting thing is that Alexander Filimonov was suspended, according to Assen Hadzhitodorov for propaganda of the European Championship for the disabled boycott. But the petition was signed by the other members of the Federation, including me and Marjan Capla. Step back only Filimonov. But Marjan Capla and I left for a snack? Let us then resign Mazurenko, resign Capla ...

General statistic is: 26 countries and 805 participants came to the European Championship.

The largest number of athletes, not the largest number of countries. The largest number of countries was in Poland - 30 countries. Today there are 37 accepted members of the European Federation. This year Iceland and Serbia were accepted. The representative of Serbia was present in the hall, the representative of Iceland was not in the room. We accept "dead members" for the next year they give Assen proxy and we continue dealing with the atrocities.

Another transgression committed by this time. According to the rules, at the beginning of EAF Championship there should be a Team Registration and payment for participation in the Championship. By payment information we see how many teams and federations we have at the event. The federation, which does not make the payment is not entitled to vote. This year, Congress went first and the next day - registration of teams. To my humble opinion this is nothing else but total chaos.

Igor Mazurenko