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Before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, the IFPA released new statements intended to clarify its internal structure, bathroom-access expectations for sanctioned events, and its next steps following the OBX Fall Flippers incident – the organization’s first public updates since the resignation of the Women’s Advisory Board.
If you’re behind on this story, you can find our earlier reporting on the incident, the IFPA’s initial response, the internal IFPA Slack messages, and the Women’s Advisory Board resignation, plus a concise summary in the November 21 edition of This Week in Pinball.
Across these updates, the IFPA is clarifying who actually makes decisions, formalizing inclusion policy in a more binding way, and attempting to rebuild staff after the WAB exit.
In the IFPA Discord, Director Adam Becker restated the organization’s longstanding structure: all policy and decision-making authority sits with President Josh Sharpe, not with the directors, and that model isn’t changing.
“The IFPA organization includes Directors who serve in three capacities: advising on decisions, executing on policy and administration, and acting as a delegated agent of the IFPA for urgent decision making when the IFPA President is unavailable. None of the IFPA Directors get a vote or the ultimate say in IFPA policy…”
With regard to the resignation of the Women’s Advisory Board, he also noted that, “we are absolutely looking to add new members to our staff including women and other people with diverse life experiences and perspectives. This process of adding new members is active and is moving along well…”
New directors aren’t announced until after a trial and onboarding period, so any staffing updates will likely surface in the coming weeks.
The IFPA created a new Diversity & Inclusion Code document that incorporates its existing Gender Inclusion Policy from February 2025 and adds an Inclusive Restroom and Bathroom Policy. The new policy sets expectations for TDs and event organizers and defines the repercussions if those expectations are not met.
To run IFPA-sanctioned tournaments, venues must allow players to use bathrooms that align with their identity, regardless of any state or local regulations that may apply. If a player is prevented from using the bathroom at an event, the event will lose its sanction.
This is the first time the IFPA has directly tied bathroom-access violations with sanctioning.
When reached for comment, an IFPA official said, “Our intention is that with this policy clearly outlined (including a direct statement that compliance with that policy is directly tied to sanctioning), any future decision that comes up related to bathroom access will be swiftly and thoroughly addressed by the TD and hosting venue.”
The IFPA also clarified long-standing options for player suppression and opt-outs, following new requests from players and TDs. Suppressed players still count in results and fees but do not appear publicly and aren’t eligible for championship events. Opt-out players don’t count for anything (no results, no points, no fees), and TDs can choose whether to allow them. The new guidance formalizes how both should be handled moving forward.
While helpful, these changes are likely the first of many we’ll see in the coming weeks and months. As one official told me regarding the new Diversity and Inclusion Code, “We will add more to the Diversity and Inclusion Code in the future to provide specific guidance on anti-harassment and other topics beyond just bathroom access.”
We also know that changes to the IFPA director lineup are coming sooner than later, and other changes are being considered, but “some actions will take longer than others.” We’ll likely see a few new names added to the team once the trial period and onboarding are complete, but I doubt we’ll see a formal resurrection of the prior Women’s Advisory Board concept.
Mostly, these changes have been met with skepticism in the community, with some demanding more specific timelines and greater transparency into the process.
Read on for the full text of the statements from the IFPA. We’ll continue to monitor for additional changes and announcements as they happen.
(link)
"Following IFPA mismanagement of the OBX tournament and subsequent response, there are many issues that we need to address going forward. We have had active internal discussions on best next steps for the past two weeks but we have not posted much publicly after Josh’s statement on November 14th. We apologize for that lack of communication.
We acknowledge the substantial feedback from the community and are listening to the numerous suggestions we received. IFPA is working on new policies and organization changes to provide a better framework for our staff, better support for our TDs, and a safer and more inclusive environment for all players wishing to participate in IFPA events.
There is a lot to do, some actions will take longer than others. Our first priority is to make changes to the tournament and results submission process to reinforce that IFPA sanctioned events cannot discriminate against any group of players. We have added a “Diversity and Inclusion Code” to our site HERE and to our tournament submission email confirmation to make our position clear. It currently includes our “Inclusive Restroom and Bathroom Policy” and we are working to add other sections covering more general requirements for venue, TD, and player behavior that are expected and necessary to receive and maintain IFPA sanctioning.
Finally, we want to express our appreciation for all the hard work and improvements the Women’s Advisory Board provided the IFPA and the hobby as a whole throughout the years. We are working on a transition plan to continue bringing diverse and inclusive perspectives to the IFPA.
—–
In light of recent events, several Tournament Directors have reached out for clarification on IFPA’s position regarding bathroom access at sanctioned events, particularly in states with restrictive laws governing which bathrooms individuals may use.
We want to provide clear guidance for all Tournament Directors, which are announcing here and have included on our site’s Diversity and Inclusion Code page:
Inclusive Restroom and Bathroom Policy
At all IFPA sanctioned tournaments and leagues, every player must be allowed to use the bathroom that aligns with their identity. This requirement applies regardless of any state or local regulations to the contrary.
Please ensure that any venue you select is able to provide safe and accessible bathroom options for all players. Whenever possible, we encourage choosing locations that offer gender-neutral restrooms, as they help ensure comfort and inclusion for everyone.
To be absolutely clear: If a player is prevented from using the bathroom at an event, the event will lose its sanction, without debate.
Our goal is to support TDs in making the best choices for their players and to ensure that all participants feel welcome, respected, and safe.
If you have any questions or need further clarification, please contact us at ifpapinball@gmail.com
– IFPA"
"We wanted to take a moment and address some of the questions we have been seeing in the discord, we are working on other responses internally and will release them when they are ready, thanks for your time and understanding.
Q: How will women and others with diverse perspectives and experiences be included in the IFPA’s decision making process?
A: All of the IFPA’s policy decisions are ultimately made by Josh Sharpe in his role as IFPA President. The IFPA organization includes Directors who serve in three capacities: advising on decisions, executing on policy and administration, and acting as a delegated agent of the IFPA for urgent decision making when the IFPA President is unavailable. None of the IFPA Directors get a vote or the ultimate say in IFPA policy; this process has been this way since the founding of the IFPA and we have no plans to change it; it applies universally for all IFPA Directors. With the recent resignation of 5 members of the IFPA Staff we are absolutely looking to add new members to our staff including women and other people with diverse life experiences and perspectives. This process of adding new members is active and is moving along well; as you can imagine any new member of the IFPA Staff can expect to have their input and actions scrutinized by the pinball community. It’s also important that there are respectful and open lines of communication among the entire IFPA Staff so the onboarding process involves internal discussion and a trial period. All decisions will still ultimately be made by the IFPA President.
Q: Could you please provide a more clear and complete explanation of why the IFPA has decided to uphold the sanctioning of OBX 2025?
A: We don't think there's anything we can say that would change anyone's mind at this point. We love you all and we hope you continue to play competitive pinball. If you're doing that with the IFPA, that's wonderful; we welcome you and we will continue to try to make the IFPA better every day. If you feel that you can't put your support behind the IFPA, we also understand that feeling; we understand how our decisions and actions over the past few weeks led to that. We hope that you'll continue to enjoy pinball. We also hope that as the IFPA continues on, one day you'll see enough change in our actions that you again want to join in to IFPA events. We will welcome you back then as well.
To more directly answer the question: we chose to keep the sanctioning in place for this event because the IFPA said it would be sanctioned while the event was going on. We very highly value sticking to our rulings. With hindsight we admit that there are more facts we could have gathered in our review of this event, but we concluded our investigation and discussions 6 days after the original incident and we feel that we made the right decision. Players, event organizers, and anyone else watching the IFPA should NOT take this as a signal that we will tolerate violations."
Colin is the chief pixel pusher at Kineticist. He's a lifetime gamer who became enamored with pinball after taking in a family copy of the 1979 classic Joker Poker (the EM version). Since then he's bought, sold and repaired many machines, competed in all kinds of tournaments, and contributes to This Week in Pinball, the New England Pinball League, and Pin-Masters of New England. Previously, Colin spent over a decade working in marketing for agencies and tech startups. He also started and ran a music blog, happy hour website, and wrote a regular craft beer review column for Central Track in Dallas. Once aspired to be an artsy film director.
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