ITTF & ATTU Sign Affiliation Agreement

Suzhou, China, April 30, 2015: The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and the Asian Table Tennis Union (ATTU) today signed an affiliation agreement to bring the ATTU under the ITTF’s umbrella.

The historic affiliation was signed during the ITTF Board of Directors meeting, which was held during the Qoros 2015 World Table Tennis Championships in Suzhou, China.

Following the signing, ITTF’s President Mr Thomas WEIKERT stated: “With this morning’s signing with the Asian Table Tennis Union at the ITTF Board of Director’s Meeting, I believe this will signal a new era of co-operation not only between ITTF and ATTU, but also personally between Mr CAI Zhenhua and myself, and I look forward to working closely with both ATTU and Mr CAI for the development of table tennis worldwide.”

Recently, the ITTF created a new structure to formally recognize the Continental Federations within it’s structure, which allows for greater co-operation in all areas, particularly in marketing and development for the benefit of global table tennis.

Other decisions from the Board of Director meeting were:
• From 1 October 2016 (after Olympics and Paralympics) coaches will have the opportunity to coach between points. Germany tested this at their league matches with positive results and proposed it to the BOD. After some detailed debate was passed.

• Currently players under 15 changing nationalities must wait 3 years to represent their new country. In a proposal by the Swiss Federation, to be in line with current people movement and migration, this was reduced to one year as long as they have not represented the previous country. This was passed unanimously in a spirit of support for our youth.

Currently if a player-pair and coach disagree on a timeout the player has precedence in individual events and the coach in team events. ITTF Rules Committee proposed that the player has precedence in all situations, however surprisingly the Athletes Commission spoke against the motion and so the meeting supported the athletes and also voted against. —- ITTF