A struggle of many years and paperwork led the fans of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in Costa Rica to take the leap in sport in the country, but finally a Sports Federation was established for the first time that will have the support of the Government through Icoder. We talked with Alejandro Solano, president of the new entity.
How was the process to inaugurate the Tico MMA Federation?
“Since MMA began, I was the pioneer in 2005 with the first fight in Costa Rica, there has been talk of the need for a Federation, as always to regulate the sport since academies and organizations come out that do not meet the basic requirements and do fights without proper rules and expose fighters.”
“We did not have support from the government and that is why the private company did not want to support us, because we did not have a foundation. When I retired from MMA and found time to do it. The associations were developed and the Federation was registered with the Icoder (National Sports Institute) and was already approved”.
Will you receive a budget from Icoder?
“Really right now the rationale is not to seek a budget from Icoder but rather that we already belong to the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation, it is like the FIFA of soccer, we already belong to them, they already have a structure and many federations from different countries and they do all their might to be an Olympic sport”.
How will you work with the massification of sport for kids?
“There are regulations and statutes where it is said what the competition is like, it includes from children, as they are obvious rules it is not combat as at a professional level, just as in amateur there are three different categories, very regulated. We promote sport from young people”.
“Today we can say that we have MMA in all provinces, now we want this to be expanded, the mission is to develop a national championship, by provinces and districts, we plan to continue growing”.
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