Photo: WSL owner Dirk Ziff. By WSL 

The WSL has just shot itself in the foot, and also its allied federations, its allied and founding nations: the United States, Australia and Brazil.

The CT surfers made the mistake of complaining about the new system and lost a slot in the Olympic qualification. There were three slots for everyone; they could have kept them all.

But because of their complaints, they went from five CTs to eight, but with a maximum of two per country.

With the system as it stands today, the chance to bring three surfers has been postponed until the 2026 and 2027 World Surfing Games.

Now the WSL has scheduled a stage of its tour on the same date as one of the events that gives extra slots, the World Surfing Games in Peru.

A date had already been set: From November 6th to 15th.

The WSL already had its tour all set and plenty of time to avoid that November 6-15 date.

What did he do? He orchestrated a whole scheme to make the event run from October 31st to November 10th.

So the best surfers on the planet, who will be finishing the tour to become champions, will have to decide whether to face a penalty, abandon the fight for the world title, and go to Peru, or stay on the WSL tour (with all the internal infractions that come with it). It's a tough decision... There might be more than one who takes the plunge... In the end, only Medina is bigger than the WSL, but he needs the WSL.

It seems strange to think that there are such ignorant people in the WSL, but what they're doing is hurting themselves. They're creating a problem for themselves.

They are telling their top surfers, their Medinas, Ewings, Doras, Colapintos, that they cannot go to Peru to get their extra spot after a fabrication by the Philippine event.

One might think that the WSL wants to prevent the ISA from gaining visibility and gain more fans in a supposed competition between the two.

But the damage being inflicted on themselves by making enemies of the best in the world, and their federations (the Australian, the Brazilian and the American), is so much greater that this decision is difficult to understand.

I'm baffled. You think sports are run by intelligent people, and then you see these things happen and you try to figure out what reason I might be missing.

Even more so when I consider that the WSL is now in the process of attracting investment! As has been reported on more than one occasion.

This noise that will be generated will not be good for the WSL and its sales projects.

This noise is about Medina, who has three times as many followers against him, Italo, Filipe, etc.

Now the Peruvian WSG will be left with a B team from each country, which could easily be beaten by Peru, Germany, and France. And that extra slot might not go to the powerhouses.

And that will be left to the WSL and its invented Philippine stage.