Rules of Ultimate

• Read the WFDF Rules of Ultimate 2009
• WFDF Rules 2009 Appendix
• See the Substantial differences between WFDF Rules (2009) and UPA Rules (11th edition)

WFDF Ultimate Team Eligibility Rules for Club Championships

Effective 01.01.2010
1. Preface
1.1. Preconditions of the Eligibility Rules
The WFDF Ultimate Club Championships are designated as tournaments for competition between ongoing ultimate club teams (referred to henceforth as ‘team’). Eligibility Rules must be easy to understand for every player. Eligibility Rules must treat all teams equally. All WFDF members must be given a chance to participate at WFDF Ultimate Club Championships.

1.2. Purpose of the Eligibility Rules
Eligibility Rules serve to:

• Define guidelines that National Associations can use to endorse their representing club teams.
• Guide National Associations to preferably endorse existing teams that also play on national club level (wherever this is possible and reasonable).
• Guide National Associations to preferably endorse regionally based teams or teams with an ongoing history of playing together rather than all star teams (wherever this is possible and reasonable).
• Guide teams to keep their rosters as close as possible to the rosters used at national club championships.

1.3. General Guidelines
A team represents a particular country. A team is ultimately defined by its roster. A team and its roster must be endorsed by their National Association. All players on the team must be members of the National Association, and must meet whatever other requirements are placed on them by the National Association.
The National Association is expected to follow the WFDF guidelines for the definition of a club when endorsing teams.

1.4. Inability to Meet all Guidelines
Should a National Association find, that certain circumstances (travel distance, limited number of players in that country or its teams, other special circumstances….) will not make it possible to meet all guidelines then the National Association must inform WFDF of their reasoning considering the teams endorsed.
WFDF reserves the right to discuss these decisions with the National Association. WFDF reserves the right to veto the participation of a team should it become obvious that the guidelines are willfully abused by the National Association. WFDF will make information regarding exceptions due to special circumstances available to other National Associations with teams participating in the applicable division.


2. WFDF Guidelines for an Ultimate Club Team
2.1. General
A team is a group of people who play together and enter ultimate tournaments under that team’s name. A team entering into a WFDF Event is identified by its WFDF roster.

2.2. History
The team should have a history of playing together.
If the country of that team holds championships in the division in question, the team must have participated in the most recent championship.

2.3. Geography
The team must have a town or city as their home base.
A core of players must live in that area of that place, allowing them to train and play together regularly.

2.4. Roster
A team is finally defined by its WFDF roster.

• A team must submit a preliminary WFDF roster no later than 2 months prior to the tournament.
• No player may be on 2 rosters simultaneously.
• The preliminary WFDF roster may at any time contain a maximum of 36 players.
• Players may be deleted from the roster at any time.
• 5 players may be added until 1 month prior to the tournament when WFDF rosters will be frozen.
• The final WFDF roster may only contain 28 players and will automatically be capped after the first 28 names when the roster gets frozen.

3. Divisions – Gender and Age limitations
3.1. General
Each team has to be registered into one of the following divisions.

3.2. Gender limitations

• 3.2.1. Open
  Any person may participate in the Open Division.
• 3.2.2. Women
  Any person who is female may participate in the Women’s Division.
• 3.2.3. Mixed
  Any person may participate in the Mixed Division. A mixed team is required to field both male and female players.

3.3. Age limitations
Each of the three gender-based divisions may also be played with the following age limits:

• 3.3.1. U19 (19 and Under)
  A player participating in the U19 division must be eighteen (18) years old or younger on January 1 of the year of the event. The player is therefore under nineteen (19) at the beginning of the year of the event.
• 3.3.2. U23 (23 and Under)
  A player participating in the U23 division must be twenty-two (22) years old or younger on January 1 of the year of the event. The player is therefore under twenty-three (23) at the beginning of the year of the event.
• 3.3.3. Master
  A player participating in the Master division must be thirty-three (33) years old or older on December 31 of the year of the event.

4. Distribution of Bids
WFDF will provide National Associations with team bids, per division, for the WFDF Ultimate Club Championships.
It is up to each National Association to decide how the club teams who represent their country will be selected.
WFDF trusts that the National Association will follow the WFDF guidelines when endorsing a team to represent their country wherever this is possible and reasonable.


Team Captains
Each team participating in a World Championship tournament shall name one player or representative to act as the team spokesperson and captain of the team. This person shall represent the interests of the team from the time of registration with the Tournament Director (TD) until all play and organisational factors are complete. This shall include, but not be limited to, discussions in any on-field or off-field disputes that may arise, attendance at the Captain's Meeting immediately before the tournament starts, ensuring that all fees and organisational aspects are fulfilled by the team and that all players follow the responsibilities set down in the current WFDF Rule Book and the current TDM (Tournament Director Manual) that will be available later on. Team captain has to speak English.

Uniform Requirements

1. Purpose

• The primary purpose of these uniform requirements is to distinguish between players on opposing teams, and to identify individual players. This allows players, officials and spectators to follow and interpret the game correctly.
• They also aim to protect player safety and comfort, and fairness in the competition.
• Additionally, better quality uniforms are expected to convey a better image of our sport to the world, taking advantage of the media and spectator opportunities of WFDF events.
• These requirements aim to minimize the costs to players of meeting their primary purpose. If resources allow, teams are encouraged to exceed the minimum requirements of these rules in order to maximise the benefits to our sport.
• WFDF requires teams to consider the public image of the sport when designing uniforms for WFDF events.
• WFDF reserves the right to require a team to alter or replace text or graphics on a garment or to replace an entire garment.

2. General

• A uniform must consist of, at minimum, a shirt to cover the upper torso and shoulders and pants to cover the lower torso and upper legs.
• A single item of clothing that covers the same areas as a shirt and pants is allowable as a uniform if it meets the requirements of the two separate items as expressed in these rules.
• For every game, a team must bring a set of matching shirts that they know will be distinct from their opponents’ shirts when viewed from either the front or back.
• A team must bring at least two distinct sets of shirts to each game, unless they are certain that their chosen set of shirts for that game will be distinct from their opponents' shirts.

3. Home and Away

• An event schedule may designate a “home” and “away” team for each game.
• If the event schedule does not designate home and away teams, the team captains will determine which team is the home team before the game by a disc flip or other fair method.
• The home team has the first choice of shirt colour.
• Prior to arriving at a game, a team may tell their opponent which shirt is their “home” shirt, and they are bound by that decision.

4. Shirts

• All players on a team must wear shirts that match in colour and pattern.
• Players may wear different cuts, for example long sleeve, short sleeve or no sleeve, but the body of the shirts must be matching in colour and pattern.
• Each player in a team for a particular game must be designated by an integer number between 0 and 99 inclusive.
• The shirt that a player wears in that game must bear their number, expressed only in Arabic numerals, with an optional leading zero for numbers between 0 and 9 inclusive.
• The number must be sewn or printed onto the back of the shirt. Each digit in the number must be a minimum of 20 centimetres high and 5 centimetres wide.
• The number may also appear elsewhere on the shirt.
• The numbers must be entirely one colour, filled solidly, and of a significantly different colour from the background shirt colours.
• There must not be any overlaid design or characters obscuring the numbers.

5. Pants

• All players on a team must wear pants that match in colour and pattern.
• Players may wear different cuts, for example shorts, skirts or long pants, but the section covering the lower torso and upper legs must be matching in colour and design and the remainder must be consistent in colour.
• Pants may have numbers sewn or printed on the front left leg. The number must match that of the player's shirt.

6. Optional Features

• If the team is a national team, the uniform may also include the International Olympic Committee three letter code representing that country and/or its national flag.
• Shirts may have player names printed on them.

7. Undergarments

• Players may wear clothing under their uniform in order to protect them from injury, temperature, sunlight, etc.
• WFDF considers that if any exposed parts of undergarments are black or white, they will best prevent a clash with the main uniform colours.

8. Gloves

• Players may wear gloves, but they must not in any way damage the disc or leave any residue on the disc.

9. Headgear

• Players may wear hats, caps or other headgear to protect them from sun exposure, the weather, injury or for personal comfort.
• If players on a team wear hats, WFDF considers that matching those hats will improve the image of the sport.

10. Socks

• Socks or stockings do not need to be matching in any way.
• If players on a team wear long socks, WFDF considers that matching those socks will improve the image of the sport.

11. Shoes

• Players may wear shoes or boots. Shoes do not need to be matching in any way.
• Any studs or ridges on the sole of the shoes must not protrude more than 20 millimetres from the sole nor have any sharp edges.

12. Team Captain Armband

• At any time during a game, a team must designate exactly one captain in attendance. The team captain must wear a distinctive coloured armband on their upper arm.
• If the team captain becomes injured or is otherwise unable to continue in the game, the team must immediately designate a new captain.
• Armbands may be provided by game officials.

13. Additional Uniform Requirements for Players

• Players must not wear anything that is dangerous to other players. WFDF considers metal studs to be dangerous.
• Players must not wear anything that gains an advantage by substantially enhancing the physical presence of the player.
• Players, substitutes and team officials must not use any equipment that amplifies their voices.

WFDF and WUCC2010 Logos

Please note that there are intellectual property rights to the logo WUCC 2010 and it is not possible to use it without permission from the Czech organizing team.

The only official merchandising company of the event is FiveUltimate. If you order your team uniforms from FiveUltimate you are directly allowed to have the logo WUCC2010 on your uniforms. Together with Five Ultimate we have prepared a special offer for team jerseys with WUCC 2010 logo. Follow this link to learn more about the special offer at Five Ultimate website.

Please remember that the Worlds logo is official property of WFDF and the WUCC 2010 organizing committee. It has been licensed to Five Ultimate for use on WUCC 2010 merchandise, and it is strictly forbidden for any other entity to use the logo (or the tournament name) without explicit permission from WFDF. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.

Sponsorship Logos and Emblems

Teams participating in World Championship tournaments may display sponsor's logos or emblems on their shirts. Each participating team retains the sole commercial rights to their uniforms. However, the following restrictions apply to sponsor's logos and emblems.

Sponsors logos or emblems should be neatly sewn or printed onto uniforms. They should also leave enough of the original shirt uncovered to enable a member of the TRG to distinguish the actual colour of the uniform from any direction.

In some countries the advertising of various products such as tobacco and alcohol are prohibited by law. Teams entering into sponsorship arrangements are expected to be aware of any such restrictions in the host country of a World Championship tournament. Please contact the TD for advice on sponsorship and any potential restrictions. The TD should contact all National Associations to make clear any restrictions.