The unification of judging protocols of Karate competitions around the world was on top of the agenda of the high-profile meeting today.

Headed by WKF President Antonio Espinós and coordinated by WKF Referee Commission chairman Javier Escalante, the meeting had the Presidents of the WKF Continental Federations and the heads of the WKF and Continental Federations Referee Commissions gathering via videoconference. Members of the WKF Executive Committee were also in attendance.

Having a common interpretation of the competition rules in Karate events all over the world, especially at the Continental and National level, as well as a unified system for the evaluation, education, and supervision of officials are the main goals of the refereeing standardization project discussed today.

A wide-ranging initiative, this plan aims at improving judging worldwide over the course of the next years. In order to achieve this goal, a complete monitoring of the refereeing protocols of the Continental Championships and main WKF events will start early this year and will be extended along 2022 and 2023. 

WKF President Antonio Espinós said:

“The refereeing body of the WKF has experienced an outstanding development over the last few years. As we can attest at our events, the refereeing level is now as high as ever. Nonetheless, our purpose now is to make sure that this ever-growing progress is unified and standardized in every single event around the world

“This is a very ambitious project, and it will require hard work, great efforts, and quite some time to implement. However, I am convinced that this project put Karate in the right direction as it concurs with the values of fairness and neutrality of our sport.

“Ultimately, we are working hard to protect the athletes so they can find the best conditions to display their skills at each one of our events.”