WFDF says it's rethinking its procedures around waitlist bid allocation.
May 4, 2026 by Charlie Eisenhood in News
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) awarded the final waitlist bids for this August’s World Ultimate Club Championships to teams behind the United States and Canada on the waitlist after USA Ultimate says it never received the email about open spots and Ultimate Canada responded one day after the deadline.
Now, USA Ultimate and Ultimate Canada have sent a joint letter to WFDF fighting for more transparency in communication and for the impacted teams to be admitted into the tournament.
The Email
On Thursday, February 26th, WFDF sent an email blast out to the national federations — organizations like USA Ultimate and the Australian Flying Disc Federation — with the subject line “WUCC Waitlist Bids,” asking for organizations to reply no later than 12 PM CET on Tuesday, March 3rd, five days later, if they had “serious interest” in sending a team.
WFDF awaited responses and then allocated the bids according to the waitlist order, based on the responses they had received by the deadline. No email followups were sent out.
Bids in the Open Division went to Germany (10th on the waitlist) and Great Britain (18th, right behind USA and Canada), and in the Women’s Division the lone available bid went to Great Britain (4th, behind Switzerland, USA, and Canada).
Those were the fourth teams in each division from GBR to get into the biggest international tournament for club teams. WUCC, held every four years, is set for Limerick, Ireland, on August 15-22, featuring 136 teams.
Ultiworld has reviewed a copy of the WFDF email: it was sent out to the national federation contact list — including generic contact emails like [email protected] — without including additional emails associated with some of the larger organizations’ club or national team contacts. The organizations had under three business days to reply.
“Because it was short in terms of teams needing to organize themselves to actually come — in late February, almost March — we wanted to make sure we gave them as much time as possible [to plan for the event],” said WFDF Vice President Brian Gisel. “So we were trying to turn this around as quickly as we could.”
USA Ultimate said that they checked every possible location for the email in their info@ inbox, including spam and deleted emails, and never found any record of the email arriving. It didn’t bounce back to WFDF, either. “That doesn’t mean 100% they got it,” said Gisel. “And I don’t personally believe they did get it. I don’t know why they didn’t, and [USAU Managing Director and WFDF Ultimate Committee Vice Chair] Will Deaver doesn’t know why either.”
Late last week, USAU and Ultimate Canada sent a joint letter to WFDF expressing concerns about the communication and bid allocation process, both organizations confirmed to Ultiworld. USAU Communications Director Andy Lee said that the letter was, in part, “seeking corrective action, including the restoration of bids to the affected teams.”
“We have been in regular communication with WFDF, specifically about this issue, since we first learned about it last month, reaching out immediately to understand how or why we never received any communication notifying us that waitlist bids had become available,” he added. “Up until that point, we had been in regular communication with WFDF since last fall about a variety of other topics related to WUCC and other international events.”
A New Process?
Gisel acknowledged that WFDF could do more in the future to ensure that federations are aware about the waitlist status and when bids become available.
“One of things we will do going forward is to continue sending this kind of email to the federation list, but also to all of the other contacts that we have, in order to overcommunicate,” he said.
Although the waitlist procedure is publicly available in the WFDF Rules Appendix, there is not an easy way to find the current waitlist or the status of teams registered for the event. Players on teams that feel they were unfairly passed over — like Vancouver Furious George and Portland Rhino Slam! — expressed frustration to Ultiworld about the tight timeline and reliance on a single email for handing out bids.
“Could there be a longer process? Sure,” said Gisel. “Could we send a follow-up email next time? Yes.”
Gisel said WFDF is still mulling the possibility of adding additional teams, as requested by both organizations. There is still accommodation available off-campus and the field site is large enough to accommodate more teams.
WFDF is going to respond to USAU and Ultimate Canada in the next 48 hours.
