Mens FP

[Dutch Alex]

I'm very sad to read that even in the States men FP has a hard time. I used to play FP from my 13th unit 29th. Then I started umpiring for the federation, before that time I ump-ed for our club.

Here in Holland it got so far that our Fed. even declared that Men FP is not TOP-sport anymore. That means especially that no fed.-blues are assigned to those games. The men misbehaved so no umpire wants to work there anymore. Wrong I my eyes: The men misbehaved, than the Fed. punished the men FP-league with bad umpires -not up to this kind of play yet-. So the male players complained and were punished again the loss of status TOP-sport and with that all Fed.-umpires and scorers.

I'm assigned to the European Championships Men FP<21. So I will see how men FP in the rest of Europe is developing; only five teams will be present.
Czech Rep., Denmark, Israel, Croatia and Great Brittan will compete. However I think the first two will play the final; simply 'cause they have a strong national competition...

After this tournament I will tell how about the future in men FP in Europe... (if someone is interested)