Statement by the Nederlandse Vechtsportautoriteit on cancelled combat sports events

The Nederlandse Vechtsportautoriteit (Dutch Combat Sports Authority, hereinafter VA) would like to respond to the combat sports events that were cancelled in recent months.

The VA has also noted that several events have been cancelled recently. The VA regrets this situation. In these cases we have been in contact, or have sought contact, with the promoters in order to hear their side of the story. Subsequently, contact was also made with the municipalities in order to mediate where possible.

Reports
In some cases these were anonymous reports about a possible threat. The police and the municipalities investigated these reports and decided to cancel the event because of unacceptable risks to public order and safety. Each municipality has to make its own assessment in this regard, since maintaining public order is one of its core tasks.

Screening
In other cases we learned that a screening had to take place under the Public Administration (Probity Screening) Act (Wet bevordering integriteitsbeoordeling door het openbaar bestuur, Bibob). This screening could not be completed before the date of the event. In this screening, all persons who work with the promoter, including sponsors, are investigated. A Bibob investigation takes about three months on average. After that, the municipality may still request advice from the National Bibob Office (Landelijk bureau Bibob), which means the investigation can even take five months. We therefore advise every promoter to submit the permit application well in advance and to provide all requested information to the municipality in good time.

Organisation
For the sake of clarity: in the Netherlands it is arranged in such a way that sports federations and organisers are responsible for organising their own competitions. That also applies to the combat sports sector. Municipalities may attach conditions to this within the framework of their event permit policy. The VA has a supervisory role with regard to quality in the sector and acts as a link between government and combat sports organisations. As may be known, the VA has drawn up a guideline for events for municipalities and the combat sports sector. With this guideline we aim, on the one hand, to ensure that events at least meet our minimum requirements and, on the other hand, to ensure that municipalities assess combat sports events in as uniform a manner as possible. To this end we are in contact with the VNG (Association of Netherlands Municipalities, Vereniging Nederlandse Gemeenten) and with individual municipalities. Municipalities do, however, retain the responsibilities and powers referred to above.

As indicated, contact has been made or sought with the promoters whose event had to be cancelled at the last moment. We regret this unfortunate situation, which is also why we offered to mediate.

Mediation
The VA cannot solve every possible problem in the combat sports sector in the Netherlands at once, nor will we always and everywhere be able to "mediate" for parties. That is why we have opted for a systematic approach to regulate the combat sports sector better and to raise its standards. This includes drawing up the guideline for combat sports events, forming an audit team that monitors the quality of combat sports galas and introducing a digital Fightpassport. In addition, we will start work on introducing a single licensing system and on monitoring the quality of combat sports gyms. All of this can be read at www.vechtsportautoriteit.nl. Ultimately this will increase the confidence that the government, including municipalities, has in this sector (and remove any distrust).

Let us conclude by stating explicitly that we have set up five committees (see here for more information) to advise the VA and to think along with us. Fortunately, these committees include many enthusiastic people from combat sports who want to contribute constructively to regulating our fine sport together. Should you have any further questions about our role and working methods, you can contact us at: info@vechtsportautoriteit.nl.