THE BLACK SAMURAI: March 2015

Friday, March 20, 2015

JKF did too little, too late. Karate is out of Olympic now...!!!

Almost two decades ago, when south Korea was going to host the Olympic, Taekwondo got the IOC majority and was fully recognised as an Olympic sport. Comparing Taekwondo and Karate; Karate was much biger and popular than Taekwondo at that time and of course still is. Everyone knows that South Korea's Taekwondo Federations had a successful strategy and earned IOC votes for its traditional martial art, Taekwondo.

Now, Tokyo will be hosting the Olympic games in 2020. Thomas Bach the president of the international Olympic Committee officially confirmed that karate will not be in Tokyo Olympics 2020. With Bach's announcment, JKF that has already been suffering from disunity in Japan has now lost many of its members including JKA. They now find themselves in a critical situation. Japanese Karstekas believe that JKF did too little, too late for karate to be in the Olympics 2020.

Dear Mr Bach, President of International Olympic Committee

Black Samurai 3:31:00 PM

For the attention of: National Olympic Committees as required

For the attention of: Mr Thomas Bach,

President of International Olympic Committee

Dear Mr Bach, President of International Olympic Committee

Re: Karate

We are trying to bring to the attention of the IOC that many respected karate organisations do not consider that their views are accurately, fairly represented or indeed represented at all by the World Karate Federation, in relation to some critical matters which we must bring to your attention.

We strongly urge you to note that the World Karate Federation is actually an undemocratic organization and that it should not be the only one that governs ‘world karate society’, it truly does not speak in the interests of or represent the views of most respected karate societies and organisations.

It was widely reported that Samaranch sent WKF (ex-WUKO) a letter dated 23 December 1998, in which he approved them as the IF for karate in the Olympics. They have been listed as a provisional IF on the IOC web site for some time. Many have realized that the WKF (ex-WUKO) has been claiming that the IOC had or would approve them, and that karate would be a medal event in the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the Athens 2004 Olympics, neither of which were possible.

In 1993 and again 1997 the IOC Session approved an agreement between WKF (ex-WUKO) and ITKF whereby they would merge into a unified IF for karate. The merger never occurred.

Both ITKF and WKF (ex-WUKO) claimed they worked toward the merger; however, WKF (ex-WUKO) had been requesting that the IOC remove the merger and claimed that the IOC had agreed to their request.

We must draw to your attention the question that still remains: Did Samaranch have any authority to approve an IF, particularly to repudiate the terms set by the Session for approval of such an IF?

From the point of view of many Karate Organisations, there have now been 2 decades of undemocratic rules in the WKF; the global Karate community expected WKF President Mr Antonio Espinós to take full responsibility and resign from his post when Karate was unsuccessful in its Olympic bid for a 3rd time, as the honorable decision to take. Yet Mr Espinós did not take such an honorable decision. Subsequently a letter from the WKF secretary clearly pointed to large scale corruption and 'miss-management by the President' at the heart of the organisation. This letter is still unanswered by Mr Espinós and the secretary was removed illegally from his position. Why? (WKF’s Statue 15.2: The Executive Committee will appoint an independent qualified accountant, or a firm of qualified accountants, who will be given the task of auditing annually the accounts of the WKF and reporting to it on them. For each Ordinary Congress, the appointed accountant will moreover provide a succinct report on the audit of the WKF accounts).

Further, with regards to undemocratic rules in WKF, may we bring to your attention on behalf of our many colleagues, WKF’s 21.9 statute which states: The WKF expressly prohibits their National Federations, and their components from the double affiliation with any karate organisation as it may be determined by the WKF Executive Committee to be a dissenting organisation, and also statute number 21.12: affiliated members and Individuals shall commit themselves to accept no authority other than the one of the WKF.

An appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS / CAS) is only possible after having exhausted all the internal resources foreseen in the WKF Statutes and Disciplinary Rules.

see one of the CAS decisions (CAS 2014/A/3516)

http://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Award_3516.pdf

Many of the world’s most elite athletes of karate are very frustrated that the IOC can still recognize WKF as a Karate governance body and that the World Karate Federation is still using IOC recognition as a hammer for sanctioning unhappy members.

WKF policies have already divided world karate society to 3-4 large different groups. There is absolutely no unity and the situation has been much worse since August 2013 particularly when Mr Espinos’ sanctions applied directly to 4 international karate tournaments in Russia, Montenegro, Greece and Kosovo.

Most of us Senior Karateka believe passionately and wholeheartedly in the symbol of the modern Olympic Games is five coloured rings linked together. We respect that these rings represent the original then continents of North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe. They also symbolize the uniting of athletes from all over the world to compete at the Olympic Games.

We also believe Mr Espinós is largely responsible for the lack of unity and harmony in World Karate. Rather than use the WKF mandate to encourage groups to join, he has sought to bully them to join through the imposition of Rule 21.9. This has created disharmony and resentment in many countries and in a number of cases led to court action against WKF on grounds of violation of human rights, most if not all of them successful.

We look forward to your guidance on this matter, many Senior, experienced and passionate Karateka like ourself feel strongly about this matter and act purely in the interests of Good and Best Karate practice and appropriate world stage recognition of the athletic skill, utter discipline of mind and body, expertise and dedication involved.

Source; World Karate Campaign

WKF CORRUPTION

Black Samurai 3:02:00 PM

When statutes are designed to favor incumbent leadership (as is the case of the 2006 revised Statutes) with no clear stipulations for term limits for elective and even appointive posts, political and economic corruption will be the logical conclusion.

Politics takes many forms in the WKF, all of which should be of concern to us. Most glaring is the accumulation of power through manipulation of the organization and the Statutes that govern it. This administrative cum political corruption sets the stage for all other forms of arbitrary behavior to consolidate power in a few hands and eventually reap the benefits (this may start “innocently” as a corporate credit-card without limits issued to the “unsalaried” leader to be able to respond quicker to the “needs of the organization”). The unsavory “messenger-boys” or as some prefer to call them the “Presidential hit men” usually get the “left-overs” such as free travel and room/board for important events. The money for all of this comes from the “money-mill” composed of membership dues, a non-ending and lengthy certification process of referees, vendors of equipment, and of course exorbitant athletic fees for participation at the many WKF events that are run during the entire year (approximately 120 Swiss francs per individual event and 180 Swiss francs for team events).New events such as the Children’s World Championships and future ones like the Masters Championship will only fatten the WKF central coffer even more and finance the “good life” for an exclusive leadership. In addition countries wanting to host WKF tournaments not only have to pay advance surety guarantees of Swiss francs 40K, but also 20K towards purchase of air-tickets for WKF VIPs at the discretion of the WKF President. Host countries must also provide free room and board at plush host-hotels for the Presidential entourage. With all these benefits there is no need for a salary. No wonder the great Antonio Samaranch was kind enough to “sacrifice a salary” from the IOC for so many years and brag about it. So the good-life waits for whoever controls the organization through political and administrative manipulations for the use of assets that belong to the general membership embodied by the Congress in the WKF and the General Assembly in the IOC.

Often times the game is taken to such petty extremes that important contributions of past officials and athletes are routinely expunged from current records, reminiscent of infamous past political purges of people and their history. This appears to have been the case when Espinos replaced Delcourt but there are also many other more subtle examples of partisan political behavior especially at the national federation level as well (the Gilles Cherdieu case in France, and the effort to erase my legitimate history from the annals of Malaysian WKF involvement a full 6 years before MAKAF the current national federation was established). A recent blatant case of politics at the continental level took place at the 2007 AKF Seniors in Malaysia where the WKF-recognized AIKF group of India was not allowed to participate because of the successful intervention of the de-throned rival group, using good political connections to the EC of the AKF.

History-Sociology-Politics of the World Karate Federation & Eurokumite (2009)

Source; World Karate Campaign