World Swimming Association?

This happened in tennis a long time ago and took a long time to resolve ... Nice idea, but I don't have much hope for it. I don't even think it's a nice idea. Rival world governing bodies are a traditional method for taking a screwed up situation and making it even more screwed up. Consider boxing, or the sad history of the Professional Chess Association: By FIDE regulation, the bids for the World Championship final should have been decided by three parties ... FIDE president Florencio Campomanes broke these rules ... In response to this, Kasparov and Short formed the PCA ... They played their world championship match under its auspices ... FIDE stripped Kasparov of the FIDE World Championship title, and instead held a rival match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman ... For the first time in chess history there were two world champions, the FIDE world champion Karpov and the PCA world champion Kasparov. To have any credibility as a world governing body, a rival swimming organization would obviously have to set up a rival world championships. Would anyone respect it? Probably yes, if the likes of Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte participated. Maybe they'd have different rules, maybe they wouldn't. What if Ryan Lochte set a world record in the 200 IM wearing an ever-so-slightly different suit? Would FINA recognize it? Oh, yes! Let's sign up for that! Let's have multiple world champions in every event, multiple sets of rules, and multiple world records. That would be so great for the sport. NOT! If FINA is, liike FIDE was, is in need of some changes, the right way to do it is from within, as Bessel Kok tried to do in 2006 by running for President of FIDE. Kok sincerely had the interests of chess in mind, and campaigned vigorously for the office. Though he lost the election to the incumbent, relations were sufficiently improved within a few months that Kok and Ilyumzhinov collaborated to form the Global Chess Company. After more than a dozen years of chaos, the rival world championship titles were unified the following year.

This happened in tennis a long time ago and took a long time to resolve ... Nice idea, but I don't have much hope for it. I don't even think it's a nice idea. Rival world governing bodies are a traditional method for taking a screwed up situation and making it even more screwed up. Consider boxing, or the sad history of the Professional Chess Association: By FIDE regulation, the bids for the World Championship final should have been decided by three parties ... FIDE president Florencio Campomanes broke these rules ... In response to this, Kasparov and Short formed the PCA ... They played their world championship match under its auspices ... FIDE stripped Kasparov of the FIDE World Championship title, and instead held a rival match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman ... For the first time in chess history there were two world champions, the FIDE world champion Karpov and the PCA world champion Kasparov. To have any credibility as a world governing body, a rival swimming organization would obviously have to set up a rival world championships. Would anyone respect it? Probably yes, if the likes of Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte participated. Maybe they'd have different rules, maybe they wouldn't. What if Ryan Lochte set a world record in the 200 IM wearing an ever-so-slightly different suit? Would FINA recognize it? Oh, yes! Let's sign up for that! Let's have multiple world champions in every event, multiple sets of rules, and multiple world records. That would be so great for the sport. NOT! If FINA is, liike FIDE was, is in need of some changes, the right way to do it is from within, as Bessel Kok tried to do in 2006 by running for President of FIDE. Kok sincerely had the interests of chess in mind, and campaigned vigorously for the office. Though he lost the election to the incumbent, relations were sufficiently improved within a few months that Kok and Ilyumzhinov collaborated to form the Global Chess Company. After more than a dozen years of chaos, the rival world championship titles were unified the following year.