France To Recognize MMA in 2020

A major location in the world may finally be utilized for MMA. In a tweet by Roxana Maracineanu, France’s Minister of Sport, France will officially recognize MMA as a professional and amateur sport starting in 2020.

Au 1er Janvier 2020, le #MMA existera donc officiellement en tant que pratique sportive professionnelle et amateur en France dans le cadre de défini par @Sports_gouv en harmonie avec le paysage international de cette discipline.

— Roxana Maracineanu (@RoxaMaracineanu) June 24, 2019

Roxana goes into further detail that the ministry will oversee MMA in the county and a delegation will be determined at a later date to organize MMA events. An application is due around September and a decision would be made around December 31. This is according to Le Parisien.

MMA was banned in France in 2016, and there have been many measures taken to try and bring it back. There are already federations for other combat sports in France like kickboxing, judo, boxing and wrestling.

There are a plethora of French MMA fighters, from Cheick Kongo to Francis Ngannou, the latter of which sent his support to the French minister via Twitter. He is set to face Junior dos Santos on June 29th.