The past year have been a disruptive year for F.I.A.S.
(Federation International Amateur Sambo) a pinnacle point was last March when Senior
Members of the F.I.A.S. Council were suspended,. Their suspension and the
reason for their suspension has yet to be explained and as such legal
proceedings are being taken by the suspended members. I cannot understand why
we have reached this point, which only brings International Sambo into
disrepute no matter who is right or wrong.
So I have decided to look to the past as sometimes History
can help the future. In 1985 Fernando Compte brought together many countries
interested in Sambo and on May 16th 1985 in Bilbao Spain F.I.A.S.
was formed. 25 countries took part in this momentous event you will see these
countries list below. What was important was the Cosmopolitan F.I.A.S. Council
and its Council members compared that with todays FIAS Council which is
dominated by Ex Eastern Block Countries. F.I.A.S. today is a much larger organisation with highly well organised events but one has to ask the question
do the administration of F.I.A.S. have the passion for Sambo of those original
members or is it just another Sport Business.
It seems all the International Sports Organisation are moving down the
path of their sports just becoming a vehicle to make money and gain power. They
seem to have lost the passion for their Sport being involved just for the love of the sport?
You will notice that the British Representative was Burt
Jacobs he was the President of the British Wrestling Association. Like many of
the new members they originally were associated with their countries National
Wrestling Associations. The following year Burt Jacobs and the BWA asked me to
form a separate independent Sambo organisation for Great Britain. The reason
they asked me was I was Chairman of the Sombo Wrestling Sub Committee of BWA
and had organised the very successful British Team at the 1985 World Games. So
in 1986 the British Sombo Federation was formed which is now one of he longest
serving member of F.I.A.S. I was to become FIAS Treasures in 1989 serving on
the FIAS Council and for a while I held the title of European President unlike
today it was more of an Honorary position, the BSF went on support FIAS
Championships winning many International medals, it also held the 1989 European
Championships and 1992 World Championships in Herne Bay Kent and the BSF have
held over 20 British Opens
So why the name change? In the English language the name
Sambo is a derogatory name for Black people, it originated in the USA and was
to do with the slave trade. Many suggested we changed because of the PC brigade
this was not completely true. In the
early days of Sambo came under the umbrella of F.I.L.A. (International Amateur Wrestling Association)
so in GB the BWA were in charge and they decided rather then use the word Sambo
they would use the word Cambo, in the Cyrillic alphabet the sound of an S is
shown as a C. It was Josh Henson from the USA who came up with the idea of the
use of the word Sombo for use by the English speaking countries and this was
accepted by F.I.A.S. Strangely enough only the USA an GB use the word Sombo,
Commonwealth countries use the word Sambo they seem to have forgotten the link
to slavery, yet we have been advised that if we changed the name back we would
lose our Sports Council (Governing body for Sport in UK) recognition. Although
we receive no financial help for UKSport it is still prestigious to be
recognised as your Government Recognised body plus many have been brought up
with name.
Since those early days Sambo has changed there has been many changes
in the demography of F.I.A.S before the collapse of the Soviet Union many of
the Eastern Block Countries were not separate members of FIAS including Russia.
Many of the original countries have had several different organisations
representing them, looking back to 1986 when the BSF was formed it seems the
only Countries with the same original organisations are Great Britain, Japan,
Morocco, Bulgaria, Mongolia. The World of Sambo has seen many changes at one
time there were three organisation claiming to be the World body and in 1993
with the collapse of communism, the new independent countries tried to take
over F.I.A.S. which led to a split with one representing the West and the other
the East, this would last for nearly 10 years and was the superb negotiating
skills of ex FIAS President David Rudman who united all the different factions
and made F.I.A.S. once again a united World Wide Body. Ironically the new
F.I.A.S. regime have suspended David from the Council for the rather strange
conviction of bringing Sambo into disrepute as of yet no one has told me
exactly what that means or what he has done.
So why have I wrote this article it seems there are some in
F.I.A.S. who want to change the history of Sambo, there some who want break up
organisations of long standing because they no longer conform. This cannot
happen to the British Sombo Federation unlike some countries we are a
constituted amateur organisation recognised by the British Government and more
importantly we conform to all F.I.A.S. membership requirements. The question is
how many other F.I.A.S. Countries can claim the same and will F.I.A.S keep the
same membership requirement?
On a final point is Sambo originally a Russian Combat System
or is it a product of the old USSR? if it is the latter all the old Soviet
Republics can claim to be founders?
Martin Clarke
F.I.A.S. Grand Master
F.I.A.S. Service Gold medal
FIAS Special award for service to International Sambo
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