Carom
The eyes turn off now and then to the big screen in the restaurant, where billiards is played and Eurosport broadcasts the live scream. Claude Fath sees every movement, every carom, it seems. It is Saturday morning, the day before the finals of the Agipi Masters. The president drinks a good glass of wine with two Korean reporters and the interviewer Kozoom.
The finger goes up as a kind of a warning before. ,,I have brought my dog with me, so don’t ask difficult questions ...'' But then there is a reassuring smile: ’Don’t be afraid, it is a good dog, ask what you want.''
Claude Fath (72) is from the president of a flourishing business in life insurance since 1976, which is headquartered in Schiltigheim near Strasbourg, with more than two hundred people employed, life insurance provides for 470.000 customers in all sections of the French population and pension funds to manage with 13.2 milliard euro’s savings.
He is since eight years the president of the French federation of billiards, sponsor and teamleader of the successful Agipi team with Frédéric Caudron, Marco Zanetti, Jérémy Bury and Jean-Christophe Roux, which won six times in different configurations the European Cup for teams. He is the initiator of the Agipi Masters, the tournament which now is in his fourth year, taking up a prominent place at the international calendar.
,,My love for the billiards goes back to my grandfather, when I was thirteen years old,'' he begins the story of his life. ,,He was a very strong player in the free game and balk-line and taught me the technique. I myself could play a nice game, mainly in the regional competitions in Alsace. And one time I won a French title.''
,,I had my own ideas to start a new kind of business and I founded Agipi when I was 37, with the ambition to conquer the French market. Therefor, after my military service, I first had worked for another company in life insurance. Because I was born and grew up in Strasbourg, we have built up the company here, in the suburb of Schiltigheim. First across the street where we are located now. In 2006 we moved to this new building. And I may say that we have built up a great reputation. This year we celebrated the 35th anniversary.''
His heart lies in the Agipi company, which he has developed into a business with just over two hundred employees, but also in the sport he loves so well. Billiards has become an important part of his life. In his younger years as a player, later as an organizer in the auditorium of Agipi and as the President of the federation.
,,When we moved into the new building in 2006, Nicole Muckensturm, my right hand, said: we do have a wonderful auditorium now, for conferences and meetings, but we have a great billiard team, why don’t we built up a room where the team of Agipi can play his home matches? I thought it was a very good idea, but Nicole has never realize what it all would bring, I think.''
Claude Fath: ,,One year later, in 2007, I said to myself: I want to create my own championship. I don’t like to see playing matches to sets of fifteen caroms, because players can’t make high runs anymore. I had the ambition to built up a great, new tournament as I wanted to see, with matches to fifty caroms, a short time to play, the possibility for the top players to earn big money.''
,,The second step was that I wanted to make a contract with Eurosport to broadcast three-cushion and show it to the world. This is a very important development for our sport. We now have 35 hours billiards on tv, for the first time, with lots of live broadcasts and many replays of the best matches. My intention was: I want the people in the street learn to know billiards. That’s the only possibility, to bring it out with TV and Internet.’’
,,The team of Agipi as the most successful in the European Cup, the Agipi Masters as a world famous event, the tournaments in the Agipi house, which are organized every year: the company as well as the billiard sport have a very good profit by the initiatives of the team. ,,We are becoming famous in the world’’, Claude Fath laughs. ,,I will not say we have a lot of advertising with it, because billiards is not football or Formula 1. But in earlier years, when I took a taxi at the airport and said that I wanted to go to Agipi, the taxi driver said: Agipi? Where I can find it? Now everyone knows us and knows where we are. That’s also, of course, because we have profiled in the world of the billiard sport.''
As the president of the French federation of billiards he wants to hand over his function in June at the General Assembly. ,,I think eight years was enough and I also have noticed that it’s difficult to change things. The organization is not efficient enough in my opinion. I hope there will be a sequel, because the eight years were enough for me. I think that it’s not good that the same people stay to long at the top of organizations like national and international federations. What we need, is new inspirations to develop the sport.’’
The Agipi Masters will continue under his leadership. Together with Jean-Jacques Gangloff, speaker and co-organizer, Claude Fath likes to introduce some innovations every year, like this year the extension with matches for the losers in the final round. ,,We didn’t want players, such as Sung-Won Choi, to come here with the risk that they only had to play one match. Each player of the eight finalists is now guaranteed to play three matches.''
The system will not change extremely next year. The eight players in the finals of this year will qualify automatically, the supplement is coming from the best players in the world ranking, eight young players and some wildcards from the organization. We could still make it bigger, for example when our team doesn’t win the European Cup this year and we cannot organize the finals next year. Then it would be possible for us to expand to forty players and that we invite players from South America and other parts of the world where they play three-cushion.''
Claude Fath and his team have brought the organization step by step to the level where it is now, with the very strongest players in the world. It turned out to one of the biggest events on the international calendar. ,,We also intend that for the following years’’, he assures. ,,As long as I am president of the company, the Agipi Masters will be organized.’’
,,He concludes with a toast to the future. ,,There are only two conditions for me to continue the organization of this tournament. Firstly, I must be healthy, I must be in a good shape of course to do this. And the second is that Board of the company wants me to stay in this position. So let’s hope that the Agipi Masters still have many years to go.’’