When should a national federation (NF) be a regular member of an international Olympic federation (IF)? When do these NFs meet the requirements defined not only in the IF's rules and regulations, but also in the IOC's Olympic Charter? These are core Olympic issues that are repeatedly addressed in this newsletter. This is because the 37 Olympic IF currently fully recognised by the IOC (30 in summer, 7 in winter) and the seven additional federations in the programme for the 2026 Winter Games and the 2028 Olympics include quite a few national federations that can be described as fake federations for a variety of reasons.
In total, there are likely to be several hundred, most likely more than 1,000 Olympic national federations that exist, more or less, only on paper.
The problem affects the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) and the Winter Olympic Federations (WOF) equally. And no one is doing anything about it.
Let's not fool ourselves. Let's continue to call them fake federations or scam federations.
In quite a few nations, individuals act as so-called presidents and contact persons in several NFs at once – sometimes for a little pocket money from international sources, of course. All this has one purpose: to secure votes at IF congresses, and similarly in regional and continental federations of the respective sport.
One country, one vote, you know. The abuse is enormous.
