Fencing contacts are all wrapped up and I have made my way through floorball and ultimate frisbee (yes, there is an international federation for ultimate frisbee). Now I have made it to what is known outside America as football–we call it soccer here. The organization overseeing that sport around the world is none other than FIFA, the people behind the World Cup plus the video game series from EA Sports. Considering the importance of soccer/football as a sport, you would think that the national governing bodies might take the same approach as your major collegiate conferences and make it where fans can not easily reach them. Surprisingly, I find that not to be the case. I have the e-mails of more than 130 organizations on my list and that is just through Myanmar.
What is especially interesting is that a lot of these groups use general providers like Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail as addresses rather than creating one through a website domain they own. Josh had actually referenced something about this in the last meeting we had, saying it was much easier to use one of those free services and not set up one more e-mail account. More accounts mean more chances for junk mail to land in one of them, which can complicate the communication process. Personally, I have four accounts: one is for work, one is issued by Tiffin, then the other two are personal and where a lot of mass distribution comes in. It is hard to keep track of all the messages I get in my personal accounts. Thus I can certainly see where organizers want to streamline their communications by limiting themselves to a single account.