Dear team captains,
As you all know, no invitation on the ESBC 2018 in Vienna has been released yet. On 12 October we had informed you that the organizer is still working on details. Many of you are urgently waiting for the schedule and the hotel offers, as these will be essential for getting your players’ decisions on participation.
As a first step to help all of us out in this difficult situation, Lia had informed you on 3 November that all deadlines for the ESBC 2018 are postponed by 1 month due to the expected late relase of the organizer’s information. This means that as of today the deadlines would be:
- Registrations countries with an estimate of the players and guests: 15.02.2018
- Registration deadline for players and guests: 15.03.2018
- Registration deadline for hotels 01.04.2018
- Payment deadline for players and guests: 01.04.2018
During the last weeks, we have continued our efforts to get final information from Austria. Unfortunately, we have not been successful until today and the lack of substantial reactions from Austria lets us even doubt if and when a final invitation will be provided. In this extraordinary situation the ESBC Presidium has decided an ultimate deadline to the Austrian organizer being 10 December. If no full information on the outstanding questions can be presented to the federations by then, the awarded hosting of the ESBC 2018 in Austria will be null and void.
We regret very much that the organizer brings all of us into this unpleasant situation and we still hope that the ESBC 2018 can be conducted in Vienna as originally planned and decided by the Congress. However, we need to prepare for the situation that this might become impossible. If this should happen, we feel that an alternative conduction by another host even with rather short notice would still be better than having no event conducted in 2018 at all. Therefore, we are in contact with a potential substitute organizer already. If necessary due to a cancellation for Vienna, we will inform you soonest possible after the above deadline 10 December has passed.
Once again: we hope that a cancellation of the ESBC 2018 in Vienna can be avoided. However, we need to prepare for this situation which includes an overview of the impact such a cancellation would have. Therefore, please inform us soonest possible in case that any of you have already booked non-refundable flights to Vienna in order to consider any possible financial claims in conjunction with a possible cancellation or re-location of the ESBC 2018.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the selected organizer and we will of course keep you informed on any progress soonest possible.
Best regards on behalf of the ESBC Presidium.
Florian Fister
Secretary
European Senior Bowlers Committee