Official statement by WFDF regarding its Director of Global Communications and New Media
22 July 2017
In light of recent posts and exchanges made on his personal twitter account by WFDF’s Director of Global Communications and New Media, Rob McLeod, on gender issues, the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) would like to clarify our position on the topic and the personal comments that were made.
Gender Equity and Equality is a core value of our federation and sport and WFDF believes strongly in ensuring opportunities for girls and women are equal to that of boys and men both on and off the field. It is important for WFDF to make very clear that we do not agree with, nor endorse, the content of the tweets made by Rob McLeod over the past 48 hours. These comments were inappropriate and do not reflect WFDF’s values or stated priorities.
Rob has worked diligently for WFDF over the past year and his never ending effort and passion for and promotion of the sport of Flying Disc has been beneficial in many ways. Rob nonetheless has acknowledged that any social media comments expressed by any WFDF official, either on the official WFDF Social Media Channels or through use of their own private accounts, reflect directly on the perception of WFDF and what it stands for. He realizes that he can no longer be effective as a spokesperson for WFDF due to the loss of trust in his judgment and therefore has resigned from the position of WFDF Director of Global Communications effective immediately.
“Rob has made many valuable contributions to WFDF and the global disc sports community through his work over the last year for which we thank him but, notwithstanding that, we at WFDF cannot tolerate comments by a staff member that conflict so jarringly with one of our core values, whether inadvertent or not,” stated Robert “Nob” Rauch, WFDF President. “Especially on this first day of The World Games, where we feature mixed gender Ultimate comprised of teams with athlete rosters with equal numbers of men and women, such comments are discordant with our innate beliefs. At our most recent board meeting we had approved the new membership of the WFDF Women in Sport Commission and we will task them with a complete review of this situation to see what more we should be doing both inside our organization and throughout the community to do a better job on this.”
Regarding the issue of commentating on the television and livestream broadcasts, which precipitated the discussion, we must note that WFDF only has limited input into the structure of the event, as this is a multi-sports event that is not run by WFDF. The Olympic Channel is handling all the broadcasting, and decided that all commentating would be done in their headquarters in Madrid. We had decided to put together a team with Tom Styles, who has significant experience with WFDF and UK Ultimate events, to commentate from the studio in Madrid. For local color coverage and interviews in Wroclaw, we selected Caroline “Caz” Malone, a WFDF board member and professional broadcast journalist, to lead the team at the venue. After the discussion yesterday, we got the approval to bring in a second commentator to the studio. Hannah Pendlebury, a British Ultimate player and organizer and writer with commentary experience in Basketball, Cricket, and Ultimate, will join Tom for the broadcasting on the final two days of action this Saturday and Sunday.
Latest WFDF Communiques
17 June 2019 - Official Communication 
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is seeking bids for host organizers for the WFDF 2021 and 2023 World Team Disc Golf Championships (“WTDGC”). The WTDGC is the premier Disc Golf event for WFDF and the 2021 and 2023 editions of the event will look to build on the success of past championships held in Colchester, UK and Vancouver, Canada, and the upcoming 2019 event to be hosted by Estonia in August this year. Hosting the WTDGC is a chance to introduce an international sporting event to new communities, draw interest and attention to a host city and country, and generate economic impact for local businesses, while developing the sport globally. Bids are due by Friday 12 July 2019.
07 June 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is pleased to welcome two new additions to its executive staff in order to expand its ability to support the objectives of the organization. Igor Jankovíc has joined WFDF as Administrative Coordinator, reporting to Executive Director Volker Bernardi. Patrick Fourcampré-Maye now serves as Event Coordinator reporting to Karina Woldt, WFDF’s Managing Director, Events and Operations. Both positions are a new part-time paid staff position.
05 June 2019 - Official Communication
WFDF is pleased to announce that the French Federation of Flying Disc (FFFD) was recognized by the Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français (CNOSF), the National Olympic Committee of France. The FFFD membership was accepted during the Annual Congress on 28 May 2019 after a recommendation by the CNOSF Executive Committee.
“The recognition of our French Federation is a key milestone for the development of WFDF. This is great news for the Flying Disc community in France and for all friends of our sport around the globe,” stated Robert “Nob” Rauch, WFDF President. “WFDF has been making consistent progress in terms of National Olympic Committees recognizing our member associations, with FFFD now becoming the 14th WFDF member to be part of their NOC. We are happy to see France, with its competitive flying disc program, be accepted as a member of CNOSF, and we hope that they will get even more young athletes interested in Flying Disc sports."
“The French Federation of Flying Disc is proud of the decision supported by 82% of the French National Olympic Committee (CNOSF) to join the French Olympic movement,” commented Franck Leygues, FFFD President. “Sports politics in France are changing a lot and it was an important milestone for FFFD to get French NOC recognition. This is the achievement of 20 years of work for FFFD, and we cannot discount the boost we got from the efforts of WFDF in their Paris 2024 application. The French Federation continues to support WFDF in its goal to be a part of the Olympic Programme in the future. I would like also to warmly thank WFDF Executive Director Volker Bernardi for his support in our CNOSF application, and we are certain that our experience will be helpful to other WFDF members in getting their national Olympic recognition.“
There are now 14 member associations of WFDF which are recognized by their National Olympic Committees (NOCs), including Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hong Kong China, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America. 30 May 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is pleased to announce that its Board of Directors have approved of the Strategic Plan for the period 2019-2024, which will provide a roadmap for the International Federation for the next six years. WFDF will present its plan to its member National Federations at the Congress 2019, which will be held in conjunction with the WFDF 2019 World Team Disc Golf Championships (WTDGC) on 25 August in Alutaguse, Ida-Virumaa, Estonia. The WFDF 2019-2024 Strategic Plan can be found here.
“The WFDF board and officers will be using this strategic plan to guide our decisions over the next four years,” said WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. “We see it as a document that will help us make explicit decisions about our activities, program investments, and priorities based on strategic considerations within the context of our limited resources. At a stage where the IOC has fully supported the Olympic Agenda 2020 proposals, we feel prepared for the tasks and challenges derived from these decisions.”
28 May 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is seeking volunteers to join a new WFDF Information Technology (IT) Committee to assist the board in evaluating upgrades to its systems over the next two years and oversee the work of a paid systems administration consultant. The Committee will be comprised of volunteers from the disc community and will be chaired by Luke Tobiasiewicz. Interested individuals should submit their applications with a summary of their qualifications and areas of expertise and interest by the 12th of June to luke@teamtg.co.uk.
There are many projects that are being considered to improve the efficiency of the organization, but the following projects have been deemed to be the most pressing. Such projects can include a review and confirmation of current systems, purchase of outside systems, in-house development, development of new procedures, etc
07 May 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation opened the WFDF 2019 European Beach Ultimate Championships, in association with BULA (EBUC 2019), in Portimão, Portugal on Monday, May 6. The premier European event for Beach Ultimate, EBUC 2019 has more than 1,300 athletes from 22 countries competing in more than 400 games over six days.
"WFDF is very excited for this event and, with the development of Beach Ultimate over the past several years, EBUC 2019 will be the largest continental beach tournament in history,” said Karen Cabrera, WFDF’s Beach Ultimate Chair. "The size of the event is a testament to the interest and dedication of players, national member associations, and organizers in this discipline of Flying Disc.
"We look forward to a very successful event in Portugal, and WFDF is already looking forward to the WFDF Asian-Oceanic Beach Ultimate Championships being held in Shirahama, Japan from 13-16 June 2019, our next World Championship of Beach Ultimate in 2021, and our hopeful inclusion in the future ANOC-GAISF World Beach Games in 2021," said Robert "Nob" Rauch, WFDF President.
01 April 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (“WFDF”) is pleased to announce that the Global Association of International Sport Federations (“GAISF”) confirmed that the Flying Disc sport of Freestyle will be on the sports programme of the first edition of the World Urban Games, to be held in Budapest (Hungary) on 13-15 September 2019.
GAISF Director Philippe Gueisbuhler confirmed Freestyle’s place on the competition programme in a letter sent to WFDF Executive Director Volker Bernardi. “We thank you very much for your collaboration and look forward to working together to ensure the first edition of the World Urban Games in Budapest in 2019 is a success,” wrote Gueisbuhler.
27 February 2019 - Official Communication
The Congress of the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has approved of an additional Bylaws revision after concluding the vote by electronic means. The unanimous decision approves two additional modifications of the revised WFDF Bylaws that were approved by Congress during their annual meeting on 13 July 2018. The modifications incorporate the concept of “self-officiation” into the WFDF Bylaws and require Congress approval for any changes of the provision, in order to further clarify and promote Spirit of the Game.The proposals had been submitted jointly by the Swiss and Belgian associations.
“The addition to the purpose of WFDF in Article I, section 2 of the Bylaws to include the principle of ‘self-officiation’ in our Bylaws puts an even stronger emphasis on the Spirit of the Game to which WFDF is committed,” explained WFDF President Robert L. “Nob” Rauch.
21 February 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has received today the official notification by Paris 2024 that Flying Disc was not selected as an additional sport for the 2024 edition of the Olympic Games.
Paris 2024 Sport Director Jean-Philippe Gatien wrote to WFDF President Rauch that “after careful consideration, the Paris 2024 Executive team has reached a final decision” and that Flying Disc “has not been selected to be put forward to the IOC to become a part of the Olympic Games 2024 sports programme.”
The sports of Surfing, Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, and Breaking were selected by Paris 2024 as additional sports to be put forward to the IOC for approval, as was announced at their Press Conference in Paris this morning.
23 January 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), the international sports federation recognized by the IOC that is responsible for world governance of flying disc (frisbee) sports, is seeking one or two individuals to serve as an Event Coordinator (50%) and Administrative Coordinator (50%) to support the growth of our expanding organization. The positions contemplate a part-time (50%) consultancy opportunity for each position, although an individual with the right qualifications could be considered for both areas in a full-time consultancy position. The positions are virtual and so the applicant would need to demonstrate access to the office equipment required to perform the job.
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