The annual European Softball Federation Congress for 2014 was held on 14-15 February at the Grand Majestic Hotel in Prague, and turned out to be a swift and fairly routine affair. After Commission sessions and discussions on Friday, the plenary session on Saturday took less than an hour.
BSF President Stella Ackrell represented Great Britain at the meeting while BSF Treasurer Mike Jennings was also there as the ESF's Technical Director.
Finance and development
ESF Treasurer Eddy van Straelen was able to report to the Finance Commission that the organisation has a healthy surplus of over 140,000 euros and was therefore planning a budget deficit of 27,000 euros in 2014, primarily to spend more on development.
Some of this spending will go on slowpitch development. ESF Slowpitch Commissioner John Austin is working hard to support the development of slowpitch in the Netherlands, where coaching and rules clinics are scheduled in March, and GB Slowpitch Team Head Coach Steve Patterson will be one of those going to the Netherlands to assist.
John also reported that 15 teams have entered this summer's first European Slowpitch Super Cup, scheduled for Mlade Buky in the Czech Republic from 29 July-2 August. This event will now be held every two years instead of annually, and countries can send more than one team. While there may still be withdrawals before the March 1 deadline, this looks sure to be the largest slowpitch competition held in Europe to date.
The ESF is also looking to put together a European Men's Slowpitch All-Star Team to play in competition in America leading up to the annual Border Battle between the USA and Canada.
Competitions
In the Technical Commission, the longest debate was over a motion submitted by Great Britain to end the practice of determining pools in the larger ESF Championship competitions by drawing the names of countries out of hats rather than by sticking to the seedings established by placings at the previous competition. The GB motion argued that distorting the results achieved by teams at the previous competition didn't seem worth the small excitement of the draw at the ESF Congress, since no additional coverage or profile was achieved by doing this.
Nevertheless, the GB motion was defeated by 7 votes to 5 with one abstention.
This was followed soon afterwards by the only full draw held at the Congress, to establish the pools for this summer's European Junior (Under-19) Women's Championship. Had the pools been assigned strictly according to the results in 2012, GB, who finished sixth, would have been in a pool with the #3, #11 and #14 seeds. Following the draw, the GB Juniors are in a pool with the #2 and #10 seeds, plus a team that did not compete the last time around.
Other motions regarding competitions mainly had to do with minor adjustments to the rules determining how batting, pitching and MVP awards are won at ESF competitions.
There will also be a small change in the way that home and away teams are determined in European tournaments. In the initial round-robin, as now, home and away will be assigned according to the schedule. But from the second round onwards, the higher-ranked team will always have the choice to be home or away, and a coin toss will only be used in games between teams of equivalent standing (eg, the first-place team from Pool A plays the first-place team from Pool B).
There was also an announcement that more competitions will be added to the ESF tournaments menu over the next few years. Starting in 2015, a new Super Cup competition will be held for Under-19 Women's Teams, and this tournament will be held every other year, alternating with European Junior Women's Championships.
Because the next World Games, which now includes softball as a non-Olympic sport, will be held in Wroclaw, Poland in 2017, both the 2015 Junior Women's Super Cup and the 2016 European Junior Women's Championship have been assigned to Wroclaw to help them develop their systems and facilities ahead of the World Games.
Meanwhile, starting in 2016, the ESF will look at running Masters Cup competitions. These could be fastpitch or slowpitch and could be men, women or co-ed depending on demand at various age levels.
Relationships
It was reported that relationships fostered by the ESF are beginning to bear fruit.
The ESF's development arrangement with the American Amateur Softball Association (ASA) has already resulted in a number of initiatives between European countries and ASA state organisations. GB benefited last autumn when, for the second time in three years, we were able to send a pair of fastpitch coaches – GB Under-16 Girls' Head Coach Jeremy Thomas and GB Under-13 Girls' Head Coach Beth Perkins – to spend a week watching and learning at a top Division 1 college softball programme. Great Britain is paired with the Massachusetts ASA, and more initiatives are expected shortly.
The ESF has also conducted an umpire swap arrangement with Canada for the past two years, with one slowpitch and one fastpitch umpire being exchanged annually. It looks like this programme will now be widened to include the ASA.
The agreement between the ESF and the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) to hold joint annual Congresses looks set to continue, and the 2015 Congresses will be held together in Dublin.