[andych]

What is the diff between USBF & ACBL?

[hrothgar]

The USBF is a non-profit organization that is chartered with advancing "the interests of the United States in international bridge competition, including the selection and support of United States bridge teams and players in international and Olympic bridge competition."

The American Contract Bridge League is a WBF Zonal Authority that is responsible for governing the game of bridge in all of North American. (Note that North America includes Canada and Mexico in addition to the US).

As I recall, there were some technical issues surrounding whether a Zonal authority should administer the selection process for national teams. I don't really understand the esoterica, however, I'm sure that other members of the forum are well qualified to explain the details...

[blackshoe]

When the WBF decided to pursue the accreditation of bridge as an Olympic sport (heh), they discovered that the Olympic Charter required some changes here and there. Among them is that there can be only one organization in each country representing the interests in that country to the Olympics. Since the ACBL already had as members two such national organizations outside the US, simply designating the ACBL as the national olympic organization for the US wasn't gonna work. So the ACBL set up the USBF solely to meet the Olympic requirement.

There's another interesting aspect - according to the WBF charter, the members of the WBF are the NBOs. The Zonal Authorities are not NBOs, they're subordinate parts of the WBF. Yet the ACBL does pretty much whatever it wants in North America, paying no more than lip service to the WBF charter - and for that matter, the WBF Executive.

IMO it's all politics - compare the US "National Bridge Organization" to say the English NBO (the English Bridge Union) and you'll see that the ACBL retained most of the functions and powers of such an organization for itself. A pretty clear case of the 500 pound canary sitting wherever it wants.

[uday]

I'm sure others will have better answers but

USBF is a small USA organization that selects teams for the bermuda bowl etc.

ACBL is a large organziation that services USA/Canada/Mexico (and maybe others in the region). It used to select the team for the bermuda bowl until the USBF was created a few years ago.

ACBL might have helped USBF get off the ground. USBF & ACBL are friendly towards one another.


http://www.usbf.org/
http://www.acbl.org/

[blackshoe]

uday, on Aug 31 2006, 12:18 AM, said:

USBF & ACBL are friendly towards one another.

Heh. I'm not so sure it isn't the case that the USBF is basically a puppet of the ACBL.