Finland at last organised a qualification tournament and already completed registrations. Danmark and Germany also finished the “paper works”, France did so nearly – now 74 of the 80 seats are fixed. As the Italian association officially declined their participation in the meantime due to a lack of Riichi players, their quota was given to aspirants from Poland and Turkey. The “other” seat goes to the Danish titleholder Thomas Kragh, who couldn’t qualify in his home country as he now lives in Norway. Until the deadline for non-EMA countries the organisers unfortunately received only two applications from Japan – a decision about the unused Japanese seats will be communicated shortly.