Fresno Case

The Case Fresno (Catalan: Cas Fresno) is the name assigned by the Catalonia media and public opinion to the controversial decision of the Federation of International Roller Sports (FIRS) assembly held at Fresno, California, United States, on 26 November 2004, against the admision of Catalonia as a member of the organization, resulting in its expulsion and the loss of the international status it enjoyed as provisional member. It meant that for the first time in history, an international sport team that had been accepted provisionally was later not accepted definitely. At the same time, it was the first time that a regional sport team (Catalonia) had been registered with the opposition of the state the region belonged to (Spain).

The Spanish sport organizations actively lobbied against the Catalonia membership among the members of the assembly. At the Fresno assembly, the membership application was rejected (8–114). However, the Federació Catalana de Patinatge brought the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) at Lausanne, which admitted irregularities in the assembly (notably the lack of secrecy in the vote), invalidated the vote, and forced the FIRS to repeat the vote following the FIRS statute rules.^[1] An extraordinary FIRS assembly was held in Rome on November 24, 2005, and again rejected the membership application of the Catalan federation (125–43).

After being granted a temporary membership, Catalonia played the World Championship B, at Macau, (China), in October 2004, winning it.^[2][3] As a result, Catalonia qualified to play the full World Championship, where it played in the same group as Spain.