Softball Looking to Gain Olympic Reinstatement

The regional governing body of softball, The European Softball Federation (ESF) is creating a commission to establish the sports chances of reinstatement in future Olympic Games.

The Olympic Softball Evaluation Committee are aiming to reinstate the sport which ran as a women’s event  from the 1996 Atlanta Games up until the Beijing Olympics in 2008. A decision was made by International Olympic Committee (IOC) members to drop softball from the programme for the London 2012 Olympics after a tied vote.

Softball was again overlooked for the schedule of the Rio Olympics in 2016 in favour of Rugby Sevens and Golf by the IOC. This decision made in 2009 dismissed four years of campaigning by the International Softball Federation (ISF) under the name of BackSoftball as they tried to emphasise the sports global support.

ESF President Andre van Overbeek said: “The launching of this evaluating commission is a big step forward in understanding the reasons why the IOC dropped softball from the Olympic programme and why our Backsoftball campaign didn’t gave us the results we hoped for,

“This commission will also make recommendations how to continue with our future efforts for reinstatement and keep the Olympic dream alive for all players around the world.”

The newly proposed commission will comprise of five members who will represent the national softball federations of Europe. The decisions on who will make up the board are set to be made within the next fortnight. A report will be completed and submitted to the ISF culminating the commissions work in the summer of next year.