Confederazione Boccistica Inernazionale

The Confederazione Boccistica Internazionale (C.B.I.) was established as recently as the early 1980's. The creation of this second independent world bocce organization came about to meet a need recognized by individuals within the European bocce community. Though the F.I.B. had been in existence for more than three decades, there was still a significant portion of the bocce population that did not play the "volo" rules using the metal balls. Rather, they played a different style, punto, raffa, volo which incorporated some similar techniques and used composition balls.

On April 4, 1982 the C.B.I. was created at a conference in Verona, Italy by its charter members, the Swiss and Italian Federations. They too established the standard C.B.I. rules and made a strong commitment to expanding the international acceptance of bocce and to strive to get the sport into the Olympics. The first world championship sanctioned by the C.B.I. was a singles tournament held in 1983 in Chiasso, Switzerland. Thirteen nations participated. An international competition schedule has now been established which alternates between singles and team events annually. Since 1983 the C.B.I. has sponsored four additional world tournaments with the number of participating nations increasing with each successive event. In the team championship in 1989 in Milan, twenty-four nations were scheduled to participate with and additional eight countries sending delegations to observe the event. Those observing included Bulgaria, Turkey, Cuba and the Soviet Union. Further interest has been expressed by Portugal, Sweden, Hungary, East Germany, Andora, and Romania.

The first president of the C.B.I., Mr. Giovanni A. Baggio, an attorney from southern Switzerland, has already made significant progress towards his goals. In addition to those countries mentioned above, the C.B.I. is already enjoying participation from among others, seven South American federations, eleven western European nations, Poland, Yugoslavia and the People's Republic of China. "The dedication and cooperation of these newly emerging bocce countries" say Baggio, "is very significant. It will further expose the sport world wide and will foster more support for the Olympic efforts."

At the 1997 Singles World Championship held in San Marino Italy, there was the Annual CBI Meeting in which there was an election in which Romolo Rizzoli became president of the CBI. The USBF has been a member of the C.B.I. since 1983 and has participated in all of the world championship tournaments.

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