Budo international Martial Arts Magazine Jul.-Aug. 2014 | Page 254

only one of many, and if I appointed
the Ibero-American president I’d
have to appoint the others too and I
just couldn’t do that. Anyway, it was
me who had made him President of
the Ibero-American federation in the
first place. He told me to think about
the matter, and I told him that a
week later I’d be moving out of
there. The WKF was going to share
offices with the EKF. That was my
response and we moved into our
own offices. And we’ve been apart
ever since then.”
Why did he lose? Why didn't he win
those elections?
“Well, there were four or five
candidates. I can’t really remember
the details because we changed the
system. There was another system
in place before, from 2002, when
there was karate K and karate T.”
K was the sport side that came from
what had been called the WUKO, while
T was master Nishiyama’s ITKF, after a
period of trying to bring them together,
is that right?
“Yes, that’s right. Anyway, we
ended that in 2006. The thing is that
there were four or five candidates:
Nordahl, Faustino, Dinsdale and Rita
Rairama, who was very good.”
Then she left. Rita Rairama resigned
in 2006 and he post was taken over by
Finn Yrsa Lindqvist from Finland.
“Yes, indeed, she left. She was
very good. Everyone was very well
qualified, they spoke English very
well, everyone knew them…. The

truth is that Faustino just couldn’t
compete with them, but he blamed
me. It became an ugly obsession
with him. In 2006, after he failed to
get elected for a second time, he
thought I was going to co-opt him
but I did it with Francis Didier from
France instead.”
What about Didier? How has your
relationship been with him? I’ve been
given to understand you had your ups
and downs for a time, over issues
related to the refereeing director,
Tommy Morris, didn't you?
“No, there were no problems.
Everything’s been fine with Didier. I
put him in charge of everything to do
with the Premier League. The thing
is that there was always a lot of
rivalry between Morris and Didier,
but with no problems at all.”
Where did that “tension” between
those two, Morris y Didier, come from?
“Well, Morris is very conservative.
He never wanted to change
anything.”
Why did Morris leave the Federation
in the end?
“In 2006 we fixed an age limit of 70
for the WKF officers. Morris was
already past that so we made a
provisional exception of a four-year
grace people for anyone in that
position. In the meantime, Morris left
the European Federation and I put
Tomasso Mini in his place. Morris
stayed
with
the
World
Championships
and
then
I
convinced him to leave in the spring
of 2010, a few months earlier than

planned, so that the new
appointment, Con Kassis, from
Australia, would have enough time
to get to know the Continental
Championships before the Belgrade
World Championships, so that
everyone would know him by then.
In Belgrade Morris was there as a
guest of mine and he wasn’t very
comfortable, so he stepped aside.”
Let’s talk about Japan and its role in
a discipline – I'm still reluctant to call it
a sport – that was born there. Is Japan
today just another country within the
WKF or is it special because karate
originated in Japan?
“Things are running smoothly with
the Japanese Karate Federation
right now. We have a Japanese
technical
director,
Tsuguo
Sakumoto. And soon the general
secretary will be Japanese too,
Toshihisa Nagura. Japan is a
benchmark. My first major trip last
year was to Tokyo. We all know
where we come from and it’s
important that we do. And it’s also
important for the Japanese to
appreciate that we do.”
But a few years ago there was a time
when the Japanese federation had
their ups and downs with the WKF,
didn’t they?
“There was one tense moment at
the Munich world championships in
2000. We changed the competition
rules for kumite and the Japanese
Federation wasn’t happy about it at
all. They even said that if those
changes were approved, they’d