World Swimming Association: One Year Later, New Direction From Elite to Grassroots

By Dan D’Addona.

One year ago, the World Swimming Association formed with high hopes of becoming an alternative, and rival, to FINA, the world’s leading governing body of the sport.

One year later, the WSA is still trying to become that alternative, but it is in a much different way than expected.

Instead of an elite-based entity, focused on gaining the top swimmers in the world, WSA wants to become the world’s alternative on a smaller scale in all parts of the world.

“We started the whole year focusing on the elite athlete. But as soon as we formed the organization, the people who joined were requesting grassroot services. It was totally the opposite of what we expected. Where we are now going is to the local. That is where we are heading now, and we are well underway with that,” said George Block, President of WSA.

That means Central America, Africa, the Middle East, anywhere in the world that needs organization in the sport.

“This could be the most important thing in swimming the past 25 year, it is just happening below the radar. It will be the countries that need to have their own world championship with legitimate time standards. They can compete in their own international competitions,” Block said. “WSA has gone from being focused on the elite to being focused on the grassroots. We are leaving the elite to the ISL (International Swimming League).”

The International Swimming League has been a key part of this transition. It’s goal is what WSA’s original goal was, to have a separate circuit with elite meets.

Other than that, the two organizations are separate, and moving in different directions.

The goal of the ISL is to create more opportunities for swimmers, especially at the professional level, so athletes can participate in FINA events AND ISL events.

“There is no membership requirements for athletes to participate in ISL events,” ISL CEO Ali Khan said. “We are not trying to create some sort of exclusive club. To the contrary, we are looking to make a positive impact for the sport in general and provide the right platform to ensure the professional success of all leading swimmers. Our aim has always been to work alongside such institutions and within their own guidelines. We are confident that leading athletes will be able participate with the full support of their respective federations, and there should be no concern from any athlete about sanctions.”

Meanwhile, the WSA aims for the same thing at different levels of competition. Block said the WSA has paying members, mostly coaches from the World Swimming Coaches Association (WSCA) and American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA), but that is going to change in 2019. WSA is a non-profit organization and has spent very little of the money it has taken from membership, Block said.

“So far it (WSA Money) is just from membership. We have a contract to develop website, a contract to keep our books. We hired a person to put together (the events) work on sponsorships. We haven’t collected much money or spent much money,” he said. “We are going to have coach memberships, team memberships and individual memberships with different benefits to each one. There will be benefits for each level. We are going to have to review our rules because we were focused on adults and elite swimmers. We have to change for minor athlete.

That is how (financial) support will grow for the WSA, not from specific countries.

We have zero supporting federations. We haven’t asked for any. We don’t want to put them in a bind. We are dealing with individual clubs who want to have services their federation is not providing. If they are not in the British Commonwealth countries or the U.S., the corruption cascades down from FINA to the IOC to their federations.” — George Block

The initial WSA board plans to remain on for a couple of years to get things rolling, then hold quadrennial elections, Block said.

One of their board members is from the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA), which has a different outlook on international swimming because most of the open water meets throughout the world are not FINA meets, unlike most elite meets in pools.

“To not give an open water community a seat at the table would not be in our best interest,” said Steven Munatones, Founder and CEO of WOWSA. “We have stood up pretty hard against safety and drugs. We have actually thrown out people from our international marathon swimming Hall of Fame. Open water events are sponsored by big corporations overseas and get a lot of media publicity. Name recognition of its athletes — the U.S. is behind. Our best events are overseas. Our focus is how do we get the rest of the world, including the U.S., up to speed with more up to date races with sponsorships.”

More opportunities on the horizon in more places, just like WSA is aiming for, even with a new direction and new growth.

“We have redirected our mission to reflect what our members are telling us and we are going full-speed,” Block said. “We want the rest of the world to love our sport and experience it.”

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