Underwater Hockey - Governing Bodies

Governing Bodies

Considerable political turmoil within Underwater Hockey's world governing body, CMAS, came to a head soon after the 2006 World Championship, resulting in the CMAS Underwater Hockey Commission members resigning en masse and soon thereafter forming an alternative 'world governing body' solely for the sport of UWH, known as the World Aquachallenge Association (WAA), and which was officially ratified at the 1st WAA World Championship in March 2008. Consequently, from this point the UWH community has two world governing bodies:

1) CMAS, which continues to organise international competition in the form of the World Games (although mainly euro-centric) in alternate years. These are intended to be multi-disciplinary events to include UWH and other sports under their governance, such as finswimming, free-diving, underwater orienteering etc. The 1st World Games were held in Bari, Italy in 2007 and the 2nd was scheduled for Tunisia in 2009 but were cancelled and took place in the form of an UWH-only event in Kranj, Slovenia in August 2009. It was billed as a World Championship but only one non-European country competed (South Africa); France won the Open division while Great Britain took the Women's title. In the years in between World Games CMAS holds Zone Championships (e.g. the 12th European Championship in Istanbul, Turkey in 2008) which are intended to be seeding competitions to decide which countries compete at the World Games the following year. CMAS currently actively supports only Elite level competition.

2) WAA, attempted to continue with the original World Championship series held in alternate years. The 1st WAA Championships (renumbered - it would have been the CMAS 15th) were held in 2008 in Durban, South Africa. The 2nd competition was scheduled for Medellin, Colombia in August 2010 but did not proceed. WAA actively supports not only Elite level competition, but also Youth (Under-18; previously Under-19) and Masters (Ladies 32+, Open 35+) levels too.

The World (WAA) and European (CMAS) events following the split were held over exactly the same period in 2008 a continent apart. This dichotomy of championships coupled with the possibility of future CMAS sanctions led to many countries being forced to choose which competition to send their team to. As a result, neither competition in 2008 was as well attended as has been the case in previous years, nor as competitive.

The 13th CMAS "European" Championship held in Coimbra, Portugal in August 2011, witnessed increased participation from non-European countries. Teams from Australia, Colombia and South Africa participated.

In Europe, well-organised international tournaments (such as at Breda in Holland, České Budějovice in the Czech Republic, or Malaga in Spain) are regularly attended by a range of club teams from across the continent.