The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) is on the verge of bankruptcy by the sounds of it. A leaked letter from the ‘founder and honorary president’ reveals that the organization has already burned through its entire budget for 2023 with many key staff choosing to resign.

Apparently the organization was being funded by the UFC who paid $1 million USD per calendar year. Unfortunately this doesn’t even come close to covering the costs which IMMAF has somehow managed to accrue.

The leaked letter appeared on Twitter yesterday:

Dire state

August Wallen was one of the best mixed martial artists in Scandinavia at the start of the century. He retired with an 8-1 record and the sole loss of the Swedish middleweight’s career came at the hands of UFC veteran Yuki Kondo.

It seems that facing the best 185lbers in Europe and beyond was a much easier job for the 54 year old than running a regulatory body. His letter lays out in start terms the dire state of IMMAF,

The federation is in substantial debt. Moreover many key staff have chosen to resign. In other words we have a financial as well as a staff crisis on our hands.

 

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Amateur action

IMMAF has promote amateur tournaments all over the world since being founded in 2012. The Youth World Championships are scheduled for Abu Dhabi in August although it remains to be seen whether this event will go ahead.

Last year IMMAF put on events in Asia, Africa, Europe and the US. But all is clearly not well behind the scenes with Wallen writing that,

We have a serious democratic democratic crisis on our hands.

He is unhappy at being asked to conduct an enquiry into the crisis at IMMAF and then having his mandate to do so revoked. The former mixed martial artist is clearly involved in a messy conflict with the board of the federation he founded.

There are currently two governing bodies in the MMA world, which is probably one too many. IMMAF is the longest running but it looks like GAMMA is more likely to stand the test of time.