The Board of the European Gay & Lesbian Sport Federation - EGLSF is extremely disappointed in the failure of creating one quadrennial global LGBTIQ sport event in 2018. Especially because it was at EGLSF’s Annual General Assembly 2010 in Manchester (UK) when both licensing organisations GLISA and FGG spoke out to work jointly towards 1QE in 2018.

We believe, in contradiction with the recent statements of FGG and GLISA, that not every attempt has been made to create one global event LGBTIQ athletes were hoping and waiting for. It appears that surpassing the differences and institutionalised beliefs of two organisations is more difficult than fulfilling the wish of hundreds of LGBTIQ sport clubs and thousands of individual athletes. We cannot let our community be split as the situation on LGBTIQ sports in huge parts of the world demands unity. This decision does not reflect the wishes of members and individual athletes, for which the games are intended.

EGLSF calls upon both organisations to try once more to reconcile the difference and sign an agreement for 1QE in 2018. The heritage of FGG and GLISA must be secured as it represents years of experience and knowledge in this field of sports. Four more years of waiting will reduce the chance of a future joint event and open doors for new initiatives. We fear that having one global LGBTIQ sport event will no longer be the prerogative of GLISA and FGG.

EGLSF has always supported and will always support the realisation of 1QE as we believe it is in the best interest of our and wider community. We would like to offer our mediation in the effort of creating 1QE in 2018. We are, however, open to other world wide initiatives as well.

In the meantime, we all invite you to celebrate EuroGames, the only European LGBTIQ multi sport championships in Budapest (Hungary) where we show with the collaboration of the Council of Europe, the European Union and many friendly nations and organisations that it is possible to have LGBTIQ sport events in countries where most of us thought it would not be possible. We hope the effort and energy of these young Hungarian organisers will inspire all of us to broaden our horizons, look over our own boundaries and create a better and safer environment for all LGBTIQ athletes around the world.

Lou Manders and Armelle Mazé, EGLSF Co-Presidents

Initial FGG & GLISA Press release:

The Boards of the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA) and the Federation of Gay Games met in Montreal on May 5 and 6, 2012 in an effort to come to an agreement on the creation of one quadrennial event (1QE) for 2018. After over two years of discussions and negotiations, both organizations regret to announce that even though every attempt was made to do so, an agreement was not reached.
Both Boards, with the support of their memberships, had every intention to re-unite the international LGBTQIQ community around a new event based on three components: Sports, Culture and Human Rights. This 1QE would have combined the achievements and long standing history of both organizations and their events.

The Boards have decided that at this moment, both organizations are unable to reconcile their differences in time for the 2018 event cycle.

For the final negotiations for the Agreement, the FGG was represented by Dennis Sneyers, Shamey Cramer, Klaus Heusslein and Kurt Dahl; GLISA international was represented by Julia Applegate, Nelson Lee, Daniel Vaudrin and Wessel van Kampen.

The Boards are disappointed, but hope remains that an agreement will be reached over the next few years to create a future joint event for the next cycle of 1QE and that the future discussions will be fruitful.

The boards of both organizations would like to thank the many members, partner organizations and individual participants that have continued to support the attempts to re-unite the international LGBTQIQ community around Sport, Culture and Human Rights.
Special thanks to the Fierté Montréal Pride for providing us with a meeting venue. Thanks also go to Jason Stone and Catherine Meade for their contributions to the negotiations.
It is the intent of both organizations to continue negotiations in the future to provide the global community with great events.

See you in Antwerp in 2013 and Cleveland in 2014.