Dear friends,

Let me offer my deepest condolences for the fact that a few days ago every armwrestler's dream has been buried. A dream of entering the international SportAccord organization. We have two people to thank for that, people who made WAF their own private enterprise.

In the last few days, one of the owners of the WAF private enterprise published on Facebook (!) an information that “armwrestling has been represented at the highest levels today – WAF took part in an international SportAccord conference, as an observer”.

Recently WAF has not seen fit to inform common members of the organization of its most important steps. Probably no worthy candidates have been foud to represent WAF. So our two leaders decided to go alone and publish the results on Facebook, attaching the photo of president Putin and the beautiful opening ceremony of the conference.

In his message, mister Mircea Simionescu “forgot” to write where the conference took place; what country and city. He just said that WAF hasn't been accepted to SportAccord because some WAF members were not recognized by internal sports organizations or olympic committees.

Our “wise” leaders asked for a provisional membership for WAF, which is not even in the Sport Accord status! The convention obviously rejected that request. To end his post, mister Simionescu thanked everyone who supported him (his Facebook fiends?) and promised to return to the convention next year. In other words – WAF has been touched by the worst tragedy in all its history. A tragedy that takes us all a few steps and years of work back.

Let's analyze what really happened.

There are some vital facts missing in mister Simionescu's message.

Not so long ago, a few WAF members, myself and the RAA president included, started to vioce our outrage at Simionescu's and Hadjitodorov's actions to usurp power. Some thought it was just a misunderstanding.

What happened during the international “SportAccord” convention is a tragic consequence of lack of solidarityin the fight to conserve the democratic rules of WAF.

Let's ask ourselves if this stunt by WAF could have ended any different? Any positive hopes were crushed by inaction in relation to Simionescu and Hadjitorov, who prefer to take other people's achievements as their own, instead of actually doing something. For them armwresling is all about pleasant trips to other countries, on our money, flying a baloon during the tragic Lithuanian championships, improving their own esteem.

The international SportAccord convention took place in Sotchi, Russia. A few kilometers from the place of residence of two times Olympic champion, world armwrestling star, a man who knows mr Putin personally – Alexey Voevoda! Could someone explain why he wasn't amember of the delegation?

What have those people presented at this gathering, if there was any presentation at all

Why have no members of RAA been added to the delegation, as representatives of the host country? Where was Khadzimurat Zoloev, 10-times world champion, who lives close to Sotchi? Only Bulgarian fighters were in the delegation! Who's decision was that?

At the 2012 selections, matters concerning the Olympic Games and joining the SportAccord were key. That's why WAF needed registration as world Federation, Why has WAF president neglected to do this? Why were Canadian regsistration documents used to enter the Sport Accord, stating that WAF was some kind of religious organization? And finally – where is the federation membership money from SportAccord, the whole 4000 Swiss franks of it?

There are many questions like this. The main answer to most is that at this point in time, WAF is ruled by people who are unable to professionally represent the interests of any federation.

Let me remind you that the 2014 Lithuanian championships could have been cancelled. My company organized the whole logistic side of the event, paid for the decorations, took care of documents, visas and accomodation for the sportsmen. Meanwhile, the president and secretary of WAF sat at restaurants and flew a baloon.

The WAF congress set particular rules for development of the disabled armwrestling – the IAFD has been formed, to work on creation of standards satisfactory to IPC, and has been invited to World Games IWAS.

Hadjitodorov and Simionescu took those achieements as their own and decided to destroy all the work done by IAFD, scores of disabled sportsmen were faced with an artificial choice of competing in the World Games IWAS and World Championships in Malaysia! Simionescu and Hadjitodorov introduced a new set of protocols without WAD consent, instead of the best program ever, that has been in use for many years by WAF/EAF. Even the score keeping comission director and the main WAF referee were not informed of those changes.

The conclusions are simple. The world federations has been built for many years, using common effort, everyday hard work with fighters, state agencies and many countries participating in the process.

My conclusion is this – Assen Hadjitodorov and Mircea Simionescu failed to perform tasks assigned them in 2012. What's worse, they've lost all contact with all WAF members. Their omissions and narcissistic ways are harmful to the whole World Federation, and may result in dezorganising the federation right before the Malaysian WC's, if no changes are made very soon.

Igor Mazurenko.

Mircea Simionescu's original letter:

"Dear armwrestling friends,

Armwrestling was represented yesterday at the highest international level ever.

Yesterday at SportAccord General Assembly World Armwrestling Federation participated as observer.

Russian Federation President Mr. Vladimir Putin together with SportAccord President, IOC President and all major sport organizations Presidents were there.

SportAccord Convention is the world's premier annual event at the service of sport, focused on driving positive change internationally, and dedicated to engaging rights holders, organising committees, cities, businesses and other organisations in the development of sport.

Owned by SportAccord, ASOIF, AIOWF, ARISF and AIMS, SportAccord Convention annually brings together representatives from more than 100 International Sports Federations and organisations affiliated to SportAccord (General Association of International Sports Federations), ASOIF (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations), AIOWF (Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations), ARISF (Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations), and AIMS (Alliance of Independent Members of SportAccord).

Only two from 9 International Federations who applied for SportAccord Full Membership received the SportAccord Council recommendation.

WAF was declared eligible for Provisional Membership by the SportAccord Council. This status is not in their constitution so the Council proposed General Assembly to add this membership type in the constitution. Unfortunately this change have not been approved missing only one vote, 2/3 votes was necessary.

WAF did not met only one criteria for Full Membership, the number of recognized by National Olympic Committee (NOC) or National Sport Authority (NSA) which is set to 40.

WAF have now 70 Members but not all of them are recognized by NSA or NOC.

SportAccord General Manager Mr. Vlad Marinescu presented this issue to the General Assembly explaining the "chicken or egg" situation.

National Sport Authorities require from the National Sport Federations that the International Sport Federation is recognized by SportAccord and SportAccord require from International Sport Federations to have members, National Sport Federation recognized by National Sport Authorities.

I would like to thank SportAccord Management and their team for all their support and for all their efforts to have us as Full Members of SportAccord.

We created great relationship with SportAccord and they continue to support us to reach our goal.

Thank you all for supporting us, we keep on working on this project and next year we will comeback to SportAccord".