Support for agreements in the martial arts sector appears broad

The existing agreements that the VA has organised within the martial arts world appear to enjoy considerable support. This is the outcome of a survey among martial arts gym owners. The agreements made when the Fightpassport and the Keurmerk Vechtsportautoriteit (the quality mark of the Netherlands Martial Arts Authority) were introduced appear to have been embraced by the sector.

Hind Mechri, a law student, completed a one-year internship at the VA. Among other things, she conducted research into the legally binding nature of agreements within martial arts. Put plainly: how do you ensure that people are actually obliged to comply with agreements? A complex legal question that ultimately resulted in an advisory report for the board of the VA.

Part of her research consisted of a survey among martial arts gym owners. The subject was the level of support for the existing agreements. Seventy-nine gym owners took part in this anonymised survey, in which they were therefore able to give their opinion freely.

Fightpassport
In response to the statement ‘The agreements that the VA has made with athletes through the Fightpassport are good for the sector’, 85% responded positively or very positively. On registration, athletes commit themselves to the General Rules of Conduct that apply in martial arts. If they fail to comply with these rules, the consequences apply automatically at all federations and all promoters. This is clearly seen as an improvement compared with the situation before 2018. At that time, the various federations used different paper competition booklets. It was then often unclear which rules athletes were bound by.

Keurmerk Vechtsportautoriteit
The agreements made on the introduction of the Keurmerk Vechtsportautoriteit, under which gym owners commit themselves to, among other things, rules of conduct and the upholding of certain standards and values, enjoy the same level of support. The general tenor of the responses is that it is good to set requirements for gyms, partly in the interest of safety. There are of course also critical remarks. For instance, questions are raised about the national scope of the agreements: the quality mark requirement for competition participants does not apply to foreign gyms. The question is asked whether the VA can do anything about this. An issue that of course lies with the VA.

Promoter licence and matchmaker licence
Two more recent measures, the introduction of the promoter licence and the matchmaker licence, also encounter little resistance. Both enjoy 75% support and around 20% have no opinion. Only a few respondents are opposed to the agreements aimed at safeguarding quality. Critical remarks mainly concerned the agreements surrounding the matchmaker licence: these should be stricter.

One federation?
Finally, Mechri asked respondents to say yes or no to the idea of establishing a single overarching martial arts federation for kickboxing, Thai boxing and mixed martial arts. Two thirds are positive about the idea, one third is not. Those in favour believe it is in the interest of the athletes, and that martial arts would benefit from affiliation with NOC*NSF (the Dutch Olympic Committee and Dutch Sports Federation) because talent could then be supported structurally. Among those opposed, the greatest concern is whether too much power would end up in the hands of too few people.

Mechri’s research was indicative and not representative. The answers to the final question, however, give the same impression as earlier research. In the spring of 2021, 135 martial arts gym owners took part in a representative survey conducted by a researcher from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam). In that survey, 69.9% of gym owners declared themselves in favour of a single federation.