A foreigner in the composition of each team from the season 2025-2026 in table tennis

A very serious development, concerning the amendment of regulations, was reserved by the Ordinary General Meeting of the member associations of the Hellenic Philatelic Table Tennis Federation, which took place online yesterday, Friday 29/03.

From the 2025-2026 competition season, each team will be able to have only one foreign athlete (and correspondingly, of course, one foreign athlete) out of the two, which is valid today. From here on, he will compulsorily line up two athletes with the right to participate in our national teams.

Also in the very important decisions of the G.S. is that the format of the playoffs is changing and now the results of the regular season of the interclub championships will count, for the formation of our representative groups in the top competitions, at least half (in all the athletes in the missions) the positions in the internationals will be taken into account evaluation tables, while 15 member associations were deleted with immediate effect due to their non-registration in the Electronic Register of Sports Associations of the General Secretariat of Sports.

In more detail:

The financial report was approved, as was the balance sheet for the management period 1/1/2023 to 31/12/2023.

In the regulation of national teams and the way they are formed, the papaides-pagorasides have now also entered. Given that there has been a European Under 13 championship since last year, the Greek rating table, the Panhellenic championship and the Final of the development tournaments will now be counted in this category, as is the case with the teenage and children’s categories.

Also, the way the men’s and women’s national teams are formed has changed and obliges the federation to include in the missions for the major events (European, World championships) at least half of the first athletes (first athletes) of the international evaluation table. If for a mission e.g. if it is decided to have four athletes, two must definitely be from the ranking list.

In the competition regulations, it is a basic change that from the next season (2025-2026) the two foreign athletes (two foreign gymnasts) become one in the composition of the team competitions. The teams will be able to line up only one (one) foreigner in each of their matches and must have two athletes with the right to participate in the national teams of Greece.

Also, after this decision “athletes, who, based on the Registration – Transfer Regulations, do not have the right to participate in our national teams, in order to compete in the Play Off or play-off matches in any category, must participate in at least 30% of the matches of the category in the group phase”, as the relevant decision notes. This year, 50% of the matches in the regular season of the championships were valid for foreigners (and will be valid next year as well).

The playoffs are maintained and based on the new format, the results of the regular season of the championships will be calculated from the new season (as announced, just yesterday, by the president of the E.F.O.E.P.A. Costas Papageorgiou at the press conference for the matches of positions 1-4 in A1 women). As the decision states “after the completion of the two rounds, there will be a competitive “Play Off”, where they compete in a new group of one round keeping the score of the first 2 rounds, the first four teams for positions 1-4 highlighting the champion team of the Category and the next four for positions 5-8″. It should be noted here that the decision on the right for clubs to have second teams in the interclub championships will be implemented from the new season (2024-2025).

Yesterday’s regular General Assembly decided to delete the following clubs due to their non-registration in the Electronic Register of Sports Clubs of article 142 of Law 4714/2020 (A’ 148).

PANHELLENIOS GS

AK ZOGRAFOU

AO PARADEIS AMAROUSIOU

MSG APOLLO KALAMRIAS

DOXA PEFKI ATHLETIC CLUB

PAS HEDOROS

MESN I BOKARIA

GOP PALASKAS

University of Kifissia

LET’S STRENGTH

AS SERRON PLATON

GS SERRES 93

ASKA PROMITHEAS XANTHIS

AESL MAKARAS

GS NIREAS

The deletion of the associations was mandatory due to the application of the current legislation and has immediate effect. These clubs automatically lose the right to participate in the Interclub Playoffs and any other official EFOEPA event.