EFC COMPETITIONS RULES UPDATE 2023-24

The European Fencing Confederation (EFC) has provided information about the modification of rules and regulations relating to EFC competitions for season 2023-24, which has financial and operational implications for fencers and BF alike.

Key messages

• All fencers and referees participating in EFC Competitions U14, U17, U23 must hold a valid EFC license in the given season.
• For the European Championships, coaches must hold an EFC License.
• Maximum Entry fees for U14, U17 and U23 circuit competitions will increase by 5 euros to 25 euros (per Individual) and by 15 euros to 75 euros (per Team).
• Quota changes for referee provision at U17 events – requirement for referee starts at 3rd fencer (rather than 5th) rising to incrementally to 4 referees for 16-20 fencers (rather than 3). For teams, one referee per team up to a maximum of 3 referees (rather than previous level of 2).
• EFC entry deadline now 14 days (compared to previous 4-5 days).

What does this mean ?

1. Renew your EFC Licence now! If you want to fence in an EFC tournament, and are looking to coach at European Championships the earlier you purchase/renew your licence the better. Waiting until selection could be a risk as the timescales with the new 14 day deadline leave little time to address issues.
2. Be prepared for increased cost and/or potentially reduced U17 EFC selection numbers – Last season it was very difficult to source the total number of referees required and we frequently needed to pay fines, particularly in cases where women’s and men’s individual events are held on the same day, followed by teams where we would now need 8 referees.  These new rules would worst case mean for a squad of 20, each fencer would need to pay 175 in referee fines. Where we have referees willing and able to travel for less than the cost of the fines, or we can source local referees this can be reduced. We recommend you should plan on the referee levy rising by £50 per athlete. More into will follow once we have analysed the potential impact.
3. Be prepared for changes to BF deadlines and more strict adherence to deadlines – we have yet to work out what the 14 day entry deadline this means for the selection process – selection, invitation and acceptance – but it is likely that the timescales will have to be shortened to meet the EFC entry deadlines, and we will not significantly less leeway and flexibility to deal with problems.

Further details to note (taken from EFC letter to National Federations)

EFC U-14 Project: No changes, same rules as 2022 23. One additional event will be added in the U14 calendar – “U14 Festival” in 3 different countries, on one weekend for all 6 weapon individual and team categories. Details to follow.

EFC U17 (Cadets):

a)      In all weapons 8 competitions per weapon are included in the Calendar, selected according to different criteria: 4 largest competitions from previous seasons statistics, geographically spread across Europe, and some limitations on the number of competitions per country.

b)     In all competitions, both individual and team events will be organized.

c)      For the EFC ranking only 4 best results in individual and team events will be counted.

d)     Quota of referees in individual competitions:

• 0 – 2 participants = no referee
• 3 – 5 participants = 1 referee
• 6 – 10 participants = 2 referees
• 11 – 14 participants = 3 referees
• 15 – 20 participants = 4 referees

Quota of referees in team competitions:

• Maximum 5 teams can start per nation
• 1 team = 1 referee
• 2 teams = 2 referees
• 3-5 teams = 3 referees

e)     If a nation does not have a referee, the penalty is: 500 euros /per day/ per missing referee.

f)       Referee age limit is minimum 18 and maximum 60 years.

g)      The number of referees from the host country can NOT be more than 50% from all referees officiating in the competition.

h)     All referees MUST be registered online in our EFC Service portal. No (last minute) registration of referees on the site of competitions is allowed by the DT of organizers.

i)       The deadline for inscriptions is changed to 14 days before the date of the competition. It has to be strictly respected.

j)       One individual and one team competition can be organized in the same day.

k)      After one or two seasons the last competition in each weapon automatically will be scratched from the Circuit, to be replaced by a new candidate. Also, the evaluation criteria of the circuit competitions would be combined with evaluations provided by the EFC Refereeing delegates.

1)   The initial ranking of teams in the team event will be based on:

a)   Sum up of results of 3 fencers in teams from the individual competition in case the team event follows the individual competition

b)   Sum up of rankings of 3 fencers in teams from the EFC individual ranking in case the team event precedes the individual competition

c)    Only one team per country will be considered in the EFC teams ranking, which will serve for the awarding of the Cup for the team winner of the season 2023 -2024.

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