Swedish Bridge Federation: Open letter to FIGB, EBL, WBF, all NBO

The Swedish Bridge Federation (SBF) has, with concern, taken part of the correspondence from the Italian Bridge Federation (FIGB) in relation to events at the ongoing “Qualifier for World Team Championships & European Champions Cup ” tournament. We find this correspondence unnecessarily aggressive and would like to make the following comments:
The SBF’s standpoint has been, from a Federation’s point of view, that emphasis should be given to the outcome of legal processes. We have also taken part of the WBF High Level Players’ Commission open letter. Consequently, we cannot per se object to the right of anyone in legally good standing, and approved by the Credentials Committee, to participate in an international event.

However, we fully accept that there are also moral and ethical considerations to be made. We must, furthermore, consider that the Federation represents members, and in this case notably our international players. Together with a resounding 100% (so far) of participants in the “Qualifier” tournament our players do not wish to play against a team including Mr Fantoni, a player who has in our view caused the international bridge community considerable damage including preventing rightful winners from deserved victories.
The FIGB’s decision to include Mr Fantoni in the team representing Italy is, to us, quite surprising.
We hereby express the Swedish Bridge Federation’s support of our players’ decision.

Furthermore, we appeal to the FIGB to cease the unnecessarily harsh rhetoric in their recent letters, which threatens the usually good collaboration atmosphere within the bridge community.
We express our respect for Italy as an important bridge nation and seek a discussion on how to avoid problems of this kind in the future.

For Svenska Bridgeförbundet/Swedish Bridge Federation
Martin Löfgren
Chairman of the Board

Örebro 2021-08-27

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