IFPA to globally suspend sanctioning of events for WPPR points effective March 17th
To ensure the competitive pinball community stays safe and does all it can to help slow the spread of COVID-19, the IFPA has made the difficult decision to suspend the sanctioning of events.
This means that all IFPA events scheduled on or after Tuesday, March 17th, 2020, will not be sanctioned, approved, or result in the awarding of WPPR points. Results submitted for any event held March 16th, 2020, and prior will be approved as normal. We will revisit this decision on March 31st, 2020, and determine our continued course of action at that point.
We are also asking that Tournament Directors with pending calendar entries within that time frame please remove them via the tournament manager in order to ensure players do not think there is still a sanctioned event occurring. For TD’s worried about the 30-day advance notice rule, we will be waiving that rule once we have this situation behind us and begin sanctioning events again.
We are mindful of how difficult it has been for event organizers, directors, and small business owners to make decisions regarding current, planned, and future events. Based on the most recent information available, extreme social distancing measures are the recommended course of action in countries around the world, and any gathering for the purpose of competitive pinball is antithetical to those recommendations.
This decision was not made lightly. While some communities may not yet, or ever, feel the full impact of this pandemic, IFPA leadership feels that the organization has an ethical responsibility to take decisive action in slowing this virus’s spread.
We deeply value the feedback and guidance we received from our IFPA Country Directors, as well as TDs and players worldwide. We appreciate your flexibility, understanding, and support during this challenging moment.
Good move to all concerned. We were about to do that here in Australia.
Great decision. Takes the pressure off of organizers to make a decision. Ty guys for thinking about us.
We had postponed our tournament scheduled on 3/14 to a future date to be determined!
I appreciate the IFPA making this decision. For anyone that was uncertain about holding a tourney or continuing league play, this communication makes things easy on them, thanks.
I’m certain people have questions about how this will impact various aspects of rankings, NACS, SCS, ECS, Stern Circuit, etc. Clearly all of the “what about?” issues will depend on how long this lasts and what limitations remain when we come out the other end. I recommend not bugging Josh or anyone else about such matters before we have an idea what “after” looks like. And thanks to Josh for addressing this rationally.
Why are there two tournaments from the 17th and 18th showing on the Past Tournaments list?
Any leagues that had their qualifying sessions consist of “Direct Play” were allowed to submit results for the shortened season rather than waiting for the full season to play out.