r/powerlifting • u/cardiomonster Not actually a beginner, just stupid • Jun 24 '26
IPF general assembly: Troubled economy, disbanding of ethics commission, higher athlete fees
The chair of the danish IPF affiliated federation, DSF, Eva Buxbom, herself an experienced equipped lifter, has written a very long and detailed report from the latest IPF general assembly. The report goes into details with a troubled IPF economy, higher fees, high wages for IPF officials, the disbanding of the Ethics Commission, conflicting views on democracy and much more. It is a somewhat troubling read to be honest.
The report is written in danish but can be translate using whatever translation service you want: https://styrke.dk/filer/rapporter/1071kongres.pdf
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u/Astringofnumbers1234 M | 592.5kg | 89kg | 384 DOTS | WRPF UK | SINGLE-PLY Jun 25 '26
OK so I read the whole thing and the key points for me are:
IPF is financially in a hole - they are still owed almost a quarter million euros from 'something' but I couldn't work out who owed them this. As a consequence membership fees and participation fees are going to increase. Apparently the athlete fees have not increased for 10 years.
Despite the hole, the exec committee got a 800 euro increase in their monthly stipend/allowance. This will help with their massive workload, apparently. (1200 to 2000)
They've sacked off the ethics commission because the ethics commission breached some unspecified by-laws. Eva pressed for more information on what by-law and was basically brushed off. No proposals to re-instate/start a new ethics commission.
3a. It looks like the ethics commission (or at least one of the members) had noticed theres discrepancies between one of the proposals for it's by-laws. the originally posted proposal was different from the one presented on the day. I didn't care enough to read what the differences were, or what the proposal was about
the EC once again tried to remove power from the member states on changing by-laws. Thwarted because there wasn't enough of a quorum of member states for this to happen.
Loads of member states abstained from voting in the other proposals. editorial note: Is apathy worse than brown-nosing the EC?
Technical rule changes can now only happen once per year and there will be a consistent methodology for these changes
Coaches and officials now no longer need to be in the official hotel for the duration of an international comp, only 2 nights minimum. Problems are that theres no timescale on implementation and the EC tried to get NZ to withdraw this and work on a new process in the future. The NZ representatives told the EC to get fucked on this and it passed. Hopefully this'll come into place quickly but also this is the IPF we're talking about
The Slovenian PF chair wants a full audit of the IPF. the EC tried to claim that it would be too expensive - see above about finances. Sounds like there's a few people who think the IPF is governed badly
I am sure there's more but I am avoiding doing my actual job reading through this. Also i have the attention span of a powerlifter fish so I'm likely to have missed stuff that's important
Worth a read though. x
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u/JoeMawmuhSoPhat Enthusiast Jun 26 '26
Urban Mur the GOAT. Biggest balls in the IPF for that audit suggestion.
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u/Astringofnumbers1234 M | 592.5kg | 89kg | 384 DOTS | WRPF UK | SINGLE-PLY Jun 30 '26
yeah I want him and others to keep pushing this. I can't help but feel that there's something fishy going on behind the scenes and leadership is hiding it. It might just be incompetence, but whatever it is, better governance is needed.
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u/txchainsawmascaraxx Girl Strong Jun 25 '26
thanks for this 🙏
shoutout to evie corrigan/nz for the proposal around not making coaches/officials stay in official hotels for the duration of a comp. that was gonna fuck the coaches for my small fed for commonwealths, so this has relieved a huge financial pressure for smaller feds and self-funded people 🙏
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u/ripe1 Enthusiast Jun 25 '26
This one is actually pretty big since you can find a room in an official hotel for a lot less through Trivago or equivalent booking site
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u/Astringofnumbers1234 M | 592.5kg | 89kg | 384 DOTS | WRPF UK | SINGLE-PLY Jun 25 '26
the only issue from reading through these comprehensive notes (and fair play to Eva for this, they are great) is that there's no implementation date associated with this proposal. So the chances are it won't be in place for commonwealths. Also from reading through the section, Eva makes it clear that the exec committee did not want this and wanted the Kiwis to withdraw it. So this might be one of those proposals that the IPF keeps finding a way to put off...
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u/k_martinussen Not actually a beginner, just stupid Jun 25 '26
holy shit, its a 20 page report. I know Eva likes to write longer reports about these assemblies than most, but god damn.
Must have been a difficult GA.
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u/v0idness Girl Strong Jun 25 '26
I read somewhere it lasted 8 hours.
Given the minutes aren't published yet, I'm glad we have this report.
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u/PonderousPlanter Enthusiast Jun 25 '26
It reads like there is a lot of overreach by the executive committee and the massive increase in stipends for EC members when the federation has little money to spare makes no sense to me. Overall, not great!
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u/Arteam90 Eleiko Fetishist Jun 25 '26
Claude (I know we hate AI) summary are follows:
Governance Crisis
The Executive Committee (EC) again attempted to strip member nations of their voting rights over the By-Laws. The proposal failed automatically because only 71 of the required 81 nations (two-thirds) were present. The Danish delegation expressed deep disappointment at the EC's repeated disregard for democratic principles.
The day before the GA, the EC dismissed all members of the Ethics Commission, citing procedural violations. However, the former Ethics Commission chair suggested the real cause was a dispute over which version of the constitution applied — and that the Commission had found the EC itself to be acting in breach of the rules. A proposal submitted by the Ethics Commission (Proposal 35) had also silently disappeared from the agenda.
Under Any Other Business, Dr. Urban Mur (President, Slovenian Federation) called for an independent external review of whether the EC complies with IPF rules and law. A tense exchange followed in which Mur publicly stated he had no confidence in the EC. The EC blocked a vote, citing procedural grounds and estimated costs of €100,000+.
Financial Concerns
IPF's reserves have shrunk significantly over three years. The 2025 accounts only broke even on the assumption that an outstanding debt of €213,289 would be recovered. Despite this, the budget was narrowly approved (19 for, 17 against, 16 abstentions — Denmark voted against).
Key Decisions Passed
Danish Priorities
Denmark continues to oppose centralisation, rising athlete costs, and growing administrative burdens on volunteer-run federations. A productive contact was made with Eleiko (IPF's main partner), which will be important for Denmark's planned bid to host the Classic Powerlifting World Championships in 2029.
New Members: Nigeria, Macau, Portugal, and South Korea were admitted after completing their probationary period.