European Judo Championships Withdrawn From Glasgow

The 2015 European Judo Championships have been withdrawn from Glasgow just eight weeks prior to the scheduled start of the event.

A statement from the British Judo Association (BJA) on Saturday said a disagreement over its partnership with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to promote and support the event - which had been due to take place on April 9-12 - had led to the European Judo Union (EJU) making the decision.

The statement added that the BJA, currently in discussion with legal advisors, still hopes to have the decision reversed, with chief executive Andrew Scoular saying: Following discussions with the EJU we had cancelled the agreement with UFC to ensure we could still host the Championships.

We are extremely disappointed to have had the European Judo Championships taken away from us in this way and for this reason, and so following the communication with the EJU on Friday evening (in which that was confirmed) we have asked to meet in the hope the decision can be reversed to allow us to still deliver the event as planned.''

In a statement of its own, the EJU said that, additional to having the partnership with UFC, the BJA had breached contract by missing the agreed deadline to pay the event license fee.

The statement said: The European Judo Union has come to the realisation that the British Judo Association does not fit the EJU criteria to host the EJU flagship event.

The BJA had entered into a sponsorship agreement which did not meet the EJU values. BJA persisted in this, notwithstanding that it had been warned on a number of occasions that this arrangement was unacceptable to the EJU, which has a right under the event contract to approve or disapprove any sponsorships of EJU events.

In their several e-mails and telephone conversations the BJA referred to a loss of funding. In addition, the BJA missed the agreed deadline to pay the event license fee, which is also a breach of contract.

Taking all of the above into consideration, and given the limited time to the staging of the European Championships...(the) EJU executive committee have unanimously taken the decision to withdraw the event from Glasgow and designate as quickly as possible an alternative host who is willing and able to stage these continental judo championships.

Having informed the BJA regarding the termination of the contract, the EJU has begun negotiations with alternative potential organisers.''