“ It is great!” says Ludovic Boulvin, the President of the Belgian MMA Federation, when asked how he feels about getting the membership. “Frederic Robert, the Vice-President of BMMAF, and I have been working for so long on our own to promote the sport here in Belgium, and we’re honored to have the quality of our work recognized and see the coming of the IMMAF as a big breath of fresh air that will give a boost to our development. We’d like to thank the IMMAF for the trust we were given” When asked what his vision is for MMA in Belgium, Mr. Boulvin has a clear image in mind. “Although we’ve already set up a lot of activities over the last years; amateur and advanced competitions, national trainings, technical seminars and so forth, we still have a lot of work to gain a complete recognition from Belgian authorities. At the moment MMA is tolerated in Belgium but we need to get better than that. We’d like to have more interactions with the Sport Ministry and we hope that in the near future, MMA will be integrated as a regular sport in our country. Being a part of an international federation willing to make MMA a popular and structured sport will be a key point in that evolution.” What is your first order of business now that you have the task of representing Belgium? “Well first off all, we’re going to meet all the last requirements from the IMMAF, we’re now working on a new website (www.bmmaf.org )and are waiting for formal approval to be called The Belgian MMA Federation. Shooto will become a subdivision of the main federation. After that our priority will be unity; we aim to gather all MMA practitioners and organizations together. The BMMAF is willing to cooperate with any Belgian organization, school or federation that would like to grow. We’d like to welcome everybody in the new federation and offer our help to them so they can reach all the quality requirements.” Mr. Boulvin continues to outline the coming work of the BMMAF by touching on the key aspect of rules and regulations. “Of course, we all have to follow the same rules and to get a common level of quality in the practice of the sport. So the first steps for us will be to set up a committee and we’d like to invite some of the main MMA Belgian pioneers to be a part of it along with possibly some government officials to advise us in the administrative procedure. As Belgium is politically split in two, it’s also important that we get representatives from both regions. We will soon get started on a communication plan on how to to gather all the key people needed for this work. We aim to have a first committee meeting in the summer and the key focus then will be education (referees, instructors and so forth), popularization and recognition of MMA in Belgium.” ### Contact information : Erika Mattsson, Director of Communications Email: [email protected] Phone: +46 736 33 50 60 immaf.org]]>
