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The president of the International Surfing Association, Fernando Aguerre, has confirmed that he will stand for a ninth re-election this year, which will mean that, if elected, he will remain at the head of the organization that oversees surfing in the world for 32 years.

Aguerre, 64, was first elected in 1994 and has been re-elected eight times since taking office; the elections will be held at the ISA General Assembly; if the World Surfing Games, which are reportedly being negotiated with two nations, are confirmed, it is presumed that they will be held there.

In an interview with DUKE (see above), the authority added that he does not rule out using the two re-elections that the new ISA constitution allows him. “I would tell you that this year I will stand. I can assure you of that. I think it is a good thing, that we are in the middle of a path, from Olympic success, permanence and now funding and the development of the sport,” he declared.

The book, which was modified last year, limits any new member of the board and those who were already part of it to two re-elections.

He described the current stage of global surfing as the era of universalization that the ISA pushed and that is why there is a new boom in the surfing industry: “There has been a huge change and that has meant that basically there are not enough surfboards, wetsuits, everyone wants to surf. That for me is the globalization of surfing happiness.”

Aguerre also said that the ISA is at its best moment in history, with a permanent staff of six people hired that rises to 75 when the World Championships are held.

However, he said that while the ISA's finances had improved with Olympic inclusion, if it had not been for the help of the Olympic Committee and two championships it held, in 2020 and 2021, "the ISA would have disappeared."

Asked if there were plans to allocate money to national federations, he was emphatic: “The ISA has no money, that is what people have to understand.”

But the prospects for permanent inclusion in the Olympic Games look brighter because this means that the federation will see a share of what the IOC distributes among the world federations from the revenue collected through television rights. Approximately 15 million dollars would be allocated to the ISA, which has an annual budget of one and a half million.

This would mean a surplus of more than two million per year.

According to the president in the interview, the IOC informed him that this money will arrive starting with the 2028 Los Angeles games and Aguerre is fighting for it to start with Paris 2024.

Asked if in a scenario like this, with that injection of money, he would pour funds into the national federations, Aguerre explained that there are different levels of commitment in the federations and of professionalization and that he believes that the development of the countries will be done from the ISA. He assured that what will allow him to do is all the world championships that the ISA organizes: the World Surfing Games, Masters, Juniors, longboards, para surfing and SUP.

Regarding the organization of surfing in Paris 2024, which will take place in Teahupoo, he reported that ISA delegates have already traveled there twice and are in the stage of exchanges on how the second time of surfing will be carried out.

He did not give details of the Olympic qualification but said that there will be news on Monday. He explained that some aspects will be similar and others will not, with the particularity that for the 2024 Games 48 surfers will qualify.

For Los Angeles 2028 he is asking for SUP and Longboard to be added (he did not give this detail in the interview) but at the closing of the South American surfing competition in Mar del Plata (read here).