Federations Roundup - Attendance Irks Judo Boss; FIFA Names Anti-Corruption Panelists

Chinese Attendance Irks Judo Boss

International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer tells Around the Rings he expects well-organized events to attract more spectators than the annual China Grand Prix.

The three-day competition in Qingdao – site of sailing during the Beijing Olympics – pitted 409 judoka from 61 countries over the weekend with qualification points for London 2012 up for grabs.

Vizer told ATR he’s very satisfied with the eastern coastal city’s organizational job but expected more spectators to turn out for the second-tier event.

"The preparation is quite good from an organizational standpoint and an international federation standpoint," he said after the first day of competition in Qingdao.

"But something we missed here was the number of spectaculars. We have a great TV presentation – 130 countries are covering the event, but I haven’t seen many spectators the last couple of years."

In an attempt to draw more Chinese to watch the competition, organizers launched a lucky draw in which the spectacular who won first prize would have a chance to visit Japan for a week. Diamond Stadium, however, was only filled to about half-capacity on the event’s opening day.

For the past decade, Qingdao has staged the International Grand Prix, an event upgraded to World Grand Prix status in 2009. As the last event of the season, eight Olympic gold medalists and 17 world champions came to Qingdao, where winners received 200 points towards Olympic qualification.

Ma Wen Guang, vice president of the Chinese Judo Association, told ATRthe annual event is helping to promote judo throughout China.

"It was an invitational tournament [before] but upgraded to Grand Prix now," he said.

"It stands that judo has been developing well here in this country."

Vizer also stopped by a judo school in Qingdao before the competition to encourage more kids to embrace his sport.

"I would like to see how to support their program," he said.

Judo is growing quickly in several Asian countries, according to Vizer, and some politicians are also big fans of the sport.

"Our sport is different from others, and we are pleased that we have had some political officials such as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Prince Albert II of Monaco get involved, which helps the development of the sport," he added.

FIFA Names Anti-Corruption Panel

FIFA has named the members of its Independent Governance Committee that is charged with helping clean up the corruption-hit football governing body.

The representatives from the international football community and key figures from outside the sport were appointed by the chairman of the committee Mark Pieth, the man spearheading FIFA's reforms process on behalf of its president Sepp Blatter.

The anti-corruptionpanel includes: Lydia Nsekera, IOC member from Burundi, who has served as president of her country's football federation since 2004; U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati, a an influential figure in the development of US soccer over the past 30 years; Leonardo Grosso, president of FIFPro, the global players' union; and François Morinière, CEO of Groupe L’Équipe - Groupe Amaury, the market leaders in sport information.

Non-footballing figures are: Lord Peter Goldsmith, who served as the UK’s Attorney General from 2001-2007; Alexandra Wrage, founder of TRACE, an international non-profit association working with companies to raise their anti-bribery compliance standards; Michael Hershman, president of the Fairfax Group and an expert on matters relating to transparency, accountability, governance and security; as well as anti-corruption legal minds Guillermo Jorge and James Klotz.

The Independent Governance Committee will work closely with the four task forces mandatedto propose reforms by Blatter - Revision of Statutes, Ethics Committee, Transparency & Compliance, Football 2014. It will make proposals to the FIFA Executive Committee.

For more coverage of the Ex-Co meeting, follow ATRsister site World Football Insider.

FITA Assesses Importance

Archery, a part of every Summer Games since 1972, apparently isn’t satisfied with its past.

At a weekend meeting of International Archery Federation Council in Istanbul, FITA concluded that its five-year plan to become an "important" Olympic sport is almost complete.

"Virtually on the eve of the London Games, World Archery is on its way to achieve its main goal: be internationally recognized as an important Olympic sport," says a Sunday release from World Archery.

Also in Istanbul, organizers revealed the location of the 2013 World Cup Final in Paris to be the historic Trocadero district at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Star Alliance, SportAccord Partner

Star Alliance is now the official airline network for SportAccord 2012 in Quebec City.

Through this partnership, convention delegates will receive special discounts on member airlines including Air Canada, Air China, Continental Airlines, Lufthansa, Ethiopian Airlines and United and US Airways.

Delegates can visit Star Alliance’s website for more information.

The federations gathering scheduled from May 20 to 25 will be the 10th annual edition and will sport the theme "A Decade of Change, A Future of Promise."

Written and reported in Qingdao by Tencent's Norman Li and Yunjie Gong and in Rotterdam by Mark Bisson

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.