Carom
MADRID - The congress Horizons of Billiards, held at the offices of the Spanish Olympic Committee in Madrid, has in many ways opened the eyes of the board of the UMB, the confederations, federations, coaches and other interested parties who participated in the three-day conference. The meeting, with 21 member countries, discussed extensively the vision of future for carom billiards. The main items were training of young players, the road that leads to elite sport, marketing, training methods and increasing the attractiveness of billiards to the youth.
The outcome of three days debate and discuss, with wonderful and fascinating speeches of José Maria Quetglas from Spain and Marc Massé from France, was mainly that the magic formula does not exist, but that all parties in the world of billiard must continue to look for solutions to the decline in many countries.
The European countries, except Turkey and Spain, are struggling to inspire the youth for playing billiard. The cause is often that young people are more interested in flashy sports and are more fascinated by video games than by long training sessions in billiard halls.
The conference in Madrid opened surely new perspectives. Raymond Ceulemans, the billiards legend, opened the conference with a short but fiery speech. "What the billiards sport needs is television'', he said. ,,It's the only way to make our sport in the world more interesting and popular.''
The UMB and the participants on the congress emphasized the words of the former, great champion. The World championship in Sluiskil, two weeks ago, was seen by everyone as a highlight in organization. The tournament was covered by Kozoom and was a wonderful example how to bring billiard to the world. With Europsport broadcasting the tournament there was an approach of 42 countries. The website with live video and live scores had 3 million visitors around the world.
The conference ended with the General Asembly, where a new committee was elected. Jean Claude Dupont was re-elected as president, Fernando Requena as Vice President and Farouk Barki and as sports director. The Dutchman Santos Chocron and the Portuguese Jorge Fernandes Alipio eligible for re-election and said goodbye to the congress. As new members were elected the Belgian Nico van Hanegem and Mr. Sanchez from Chile.