18 Jun 2009 at 12:24 | Published by: JJM | Views: 7299 | News search

Top countries collecting strategic advantage at NC in Tampere.  (Photo by Arto Borg 2008)

At the board meeting on 23 May 2009 in Lamego, European Minigolfsport Federation leaders raised question marks over the future of Nations Cup tournament. Three different possibilities were outlined at the EMF board meeting:

- playing Nations Cup in the normal way, as an EMF-funded event
- playing a similar unofficial tournament, without EMF funding (to save EMF costs)
- not playing a similar tournament at all in May

EMF Finance Manager Michael Sølling (Denmark) set the future of Nations Cup at stake already last year, in his policy report for EMF annual report 2006-2008 (page 6), where he suggested that cancelling the Nations Cup would be a possible way to save costs in the overloaded budget of EMF.

In WMF ranking system, Nations Cup has the status of a major tournament. But in reality, the tournament has a status similar to a friendly practice competition. Nobody keeps a hall of fame list of Nations Cup winners, and the results of older Nations Cup tournaments are quickly forgotten by the minigolf world. Many nations test new rising players at Nations Cup, or test various risky playing lines at the minigolf courses, with a less serious attitude than at major tournaments.

For EMF, Nations Cup is an economical burden in the very limited budget of the federation. But also national federations feel the economical burden: many of the best minigolf countries in the world, such as Czech Republic or Italy, seldom participate at Nations Cup, because they don’t have enough money to send a team there.

In this sense, Nations Cup has a double effect promoting the status of richest minigolf countries over the less wealthy minigolf countries: superior strategic knowledge about the courses for countries that have money to send a team to Nations Cup, and additional world ranking points to the players of these nations. Odense World Championships 2009 neutralizes both of these effects, as NC was cancelled and the minigolf courses are installed only some days before the tournament in August.

EMF has not made a clear decision about the future of Nations Cup competitions. The necessity, status and economical burden of Nations Cup will be discussed at future budget meetings of EMF and the Organizing Committees of EMF major tournaments. EMF decisions will not directly affect WMF Nations Cup competitions, which WMF organizes ahead of World Championships or Youth World Championships.

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