2025 Review. World Table Tennis shows progress, as ITTF and ETTU get involved in scandals and discrimination

As every year, 2025 was no different in terms of performances by the international table tennis stars. They bring quality action on a yearly basis. The organizers and decision-makers in table tennis largely remain in the shadows and don’t get much attention. However, 2025 was a year of scandals, conflicts of interests and incompetence by some of the major table tennis organizations.

In recent years, the World Table Tennis received plenty of criticism from us and many table tennis fans. The retirement of Fan Zhendong created a buzz around the silly rules WTT implemented against international players. The situation further fueled debates within the table tennis community about the necessary changes to make players’ lives easier.

WTT did the right thing, listening to the complaints, and in February, they removed the mandatory participation requirement at all Grand Smash events and introduced direct entry for Olympic champions. There is still an issue about the absurd World Rankings system that massively overrates the meaning and value of WTT tournaments versus the most important table tennis competitions, like the Olympic Games, World, European, and Asian Championships. The problems are still out there, but at least WTT has shown some progress and interest in public opinion.

ITTF and ETTU, on the contrary, brought some absurd incompetence and turned the ITTF Presidential election into a pathetic circus that awarded Petra Sörling with another presidential term. It was truly a disgrace for table tennis. The elections were clearly rigged and Qatar’s complaints were fair. If Sörling truly cared about table tennis development, and not just keeping herself in power, the ITTF could simply arrange another voting session the same day. What’s the issue with doing that?

And why not make the voting results publicly available, so the table tennis community can see which associations are supporting one or another candidate? These officials, like Sörling, love to mumble around about transparency, equality, and other politically-motivated nonsense, yet they create a bad image for table tennis in a selfish pursuit of power and opportunities. After such a scandal, Sörling should’ve either asked for a new vote or simply removed herself from the candidate list. A person with morals and ethics would do this. Seems that Sörling lacks these characteristics. As ITTF president, she has been mediocre, so it wouldn’t be a big loss if she lost the election.

The clear champion among the worst table tennis organizations, however, is the European Table Tennis Union. Its vice-president, Ina Jozepsone, has been running her local table tennis federation as some sort of family business, also showing awful financial results during her presidency. She and ETTU president, Pedro Moura, have been behind ETTU’s new discriminatory policies.

You see, whenever a sports organization begins to play politics, it’s a clear sign that this organization is struggling. The modern-day liberal pseudo-equality policies work well to cover up the actual problems. You don’t need to look far for the examples. The NBA is a great example. At one point, it became obsessively political, biased, and fans were sick of virtue signalling. As a result, the NBA is in a deep crisis, having some of the worst TV ratings in its history.

ETTU has decided to be the social justice warriors of table tennis, as now they have a Gender Equality committee. As if there have been any problems with equality in table tennis. It’s hard to find a more open sport for anyone than table tennis. But seems there are some real problems we’re unaware of… Or, it’s just virtue signalling, most likely, initiated by Jozepsone, to gain some extra popularity points in those inner circles of ETTU, ITTF, and WTT.

The worst part – ETTU has actually implemented a discriminatory policy that goes against any common sense and the meaning of equality. Here’s an example. As you can see in this prospectus of an ETTU-organized tournament, they have the following option:

ETTU will cover the full accommodation cost for one female coach from member associations in categories 3 and 4. Additionally, ETTU will cover 50% of the accommodation costs for one female coach from associations in categories 1 and 2.

So ETTU is all-in for equality, yet where is the equality in this regard? Why such favoritism towards female coaches? Are their male counterparts any less deserving of seeing their expenses being covered?

Aside from being hypocritical, ETTU also might soon fuel that woke gender madness with transgender and non-binary policies because “all associations expressed interest in the work currently being developed by Table Tennis England, which is undergoing consultation and review.”

A truly important question and issues for table tennis, right? But all jokes aside, populism rarely brings any good outcome. With Moura and Jozepsone leading ETTU in an unknown direction, the organization has been turned into a laughing stock. Table tennis popularity remains low; it’s still a niche sport in Europe, but these muppets can’t figure out anything better than implementing some rubbish, discriminatory policies. And don’t forget how they love to profit from youth tournaments. But what else can you expect from a collective of failed managers…

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