As many know, for every sport there are institutions aimed at organizing, improving and spreading itself. Italian football, for example, refers entirely to the FIGC (Italian Football Federation), which organizes its championships, collects membership cards, rewards players, classifies teams and much more. It has tens of thousands of affiliates. Italian tennis, on the other hand, refers to the FIT (Italian Tennis Federation), which promotes and organizes tennis in our country. Or again, the FIPAV (Italian Volleyball Federation) coordinates and promotes volleyball and Beach Volleyball.
All these federations play a fundamental rolein the development of the reference sport and count several thousands of affiliates, between clubs and individual athletes.
But have we ever wondered how it works in games? Many of them have their own federation of reference.
Table games
The board game par excellence, or chess , has in fact a Federation called FSI (Italian Chess Federation) which in turn is affiliated with FIDE, the world federation that coordinates all the representatives of each individual state and organizes the world championships of the discipline, of which memorable challenges are remembered
This organ, close to the end of its century, coordinates and organizes the national championships between players.
Even the game that we would define “cousin” of chess, or checkers , has its own association: it is the Federdama , also with the same honors (and duties ) as the mentioned federations.
The two aforementioned realities have an extraordinary organization: in fact they possess both central bodies (such as federal councils, or the bodies of justice or those appointed to financial management) and peripheral bodies (consisting of sections and circles scattered throughout the territory).
Card games
Nothing strange so far. What perhaps few people know is that many card games are also coordinated and organized by dedicated federations. Let’s see some examples:
Bridge Federation
The bridge is named first, since her several times came close federation to promote their game is so much to do almost become an Olympic discipline . It is called the Italian Bridge Game Federation (FIGB), it is based in Milan and is regularly affiliated with CONI. Coordinates and organizes tournaments in our country and promotes it globally.
Scopone Federation
Also the scopone has its federation, the FIGS , born in 2000 in Naples, thanks to the joint effort of all the local associations already present in the territory who wanted to unite under one roof.
Federation scale 40
The Italian Federation Scala 40 and variants , better known by the acronym FISCA , is the official body in Italy, responsible for the diffusion of the Scala 40 game , as well as for the interpretation and standardization of the different variables in the rules that revolve around the well-known card game, thanks to the publication of the official regulations and the competition code to be respected in tournaments . It was born in 2010 and has no profit-making purpose.
Buraco Federation
Even the burraco has organisms that regulate it. We speak in the plural because they seem to be more than one: The federations that govern it are in fact the FIBur. (Italian Burraco Federation), FE.BUR.IT. (Italian Burraco Federation), F.IT.AB (Italian Federation of Associate Burraco) and Fed.I.Bur. (Italian Federation of Burracolive). Among these, the FIBur stands out as the most popular federation of all with more than 600 affiliated buraco clubs from all over Italy; this federation was born in 1997 with the intention of spreading the burraco on a national scale
What about poker?
Someone will ask how it is possible that, among all these card game Federations, there is not one related to the game of poker , perhaps the result of its enormous success and popularity achieved in the last 15 years thanks to the great diffusion of online poker . The truth is that there have been numerous attempts, often carried out also by people animated by noble intentions and a constructive spirit, to bring all the players together under a single name and with the same regulation. Unfortunately, also thanks to the Italian legislation that is never sufficiently clear and exhaustive in this matter, every attempt to “keep alive” each federation created has not been successful. We hope there will be a positive turnaround soon!
