London: The “MMA Is A Sport” petition for the recognition of MMA as a sport by the Olympic Movement and governments has reached its first 10,000 signatures in just over a week.
This marks a significant milestone since, in the United Kingdom, 10,000 signatures on a petition warrants a response from Parliament.
The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) and MMA stakeholders assert that formal recognition would enable the implementation of governance and regulations to ensure health and safety for recreational participants, as well as amateur and professional athletes. It would help foster youth development in MMA, and afford same rights and protections for MMA athletes as students of other sports, such as access to medical services, insurance, anti-doping, safeguarding, etc. In addition, formal recognition of MMA as a sport by the Olympic Movement would pave the way for MMA to become an Olympic sport and allow its athletes to represent their country on the world’s most prestigious sporting platform.
IMMAF has applied multiple times to gain recognition for MMA from the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) since 2016, but despite satisfying all known criteria has been denied acceptance so far for political reasons. Influential leaders from other Olympic sports have been outspoken against MMA and have actively lobbied against it. This has included advising the World Anti-doping Agency not to accept IMMAF as a signatory, despite its meeting all criteria. IMMAF has a legal case against WADA in underway in the ordinary Swiss Courts.
Meanwhile, IMMAF is currently waiting for a response to its third application to GAISF for Observer Status. In January 2020, IMMAF was informed by GAISF that: “several Representatives of GAISF Members had affirmed their opposition to the granting of the Observer Status to IMMAF. Their determinations…is justified on several reasons including but not limited to the inherent definition of mixed martial arts and that its competition rules are in clear compatibility issue with GAISF Members. We would also like to specify that GAISF had received individual submissions confirming compatibility issue due to the similarity between MMA and several combat sports.”
As requested, IMMAF responded with detailed analysis and evidence in February for reassessment. However, GAISF’s decision-making has been postponed further with the cancellation of the SportAccord Convention, where the GAISF Council was due to next meet.
“This has been going on since 2016, despite us meeting all criteria for recognition. We want to focus attention on the process which we think is unfair. By going public we now call upon participants and sports fan to rally behind our petition. We are not the only sport to have suffered due to the lack of a fair and transparent process. A small group of International Federations within GAISF are operating as a trade union and not in the interest of sports participants. Considering the impact this has on government decision making, sport governance and access to public funding, they need to come out into the open and become accountable,” Densign White, IMMAF CEO said.
