Federation of International Polo

Polo has been contested by men at the Olympic Games at Paris 1900, London 1908, Antwerp 1920, Paris 1924, and Berlin 1936, but never managed to attract a large field of competing nations. The Federation of International Polo (FIP) was formed on 25 November 1982, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with 11 founding members: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, El Salvador, France, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and Zimbabwe. The FIP is an International Olympic Committee (IOC)-recognized federation and a member of the Association of the IOC-recognized International Sports Federations (ARISF), and one of its main goals is to restore its Olympic status, but the sport’s exclusivity makes that unlikely.

As of January 2026, the FIP has 86 national associations as members, classified by different membership status. Its office is located in Montevideo, Uruguay, and, since December 2022, Switzerland’s Piero Dillier has been the federation’s president.

The FIP has organized the men’s FIP World Polo Championship since 1987, and the FIP Women’s World Polo Championship since 2022 (with both inaugural editions being held in Buenos Aires).

The FIP also oversees the non-Olympic discipline of arena polo, with the first men’s FIP Arena World Polo Championship also being held in Buenos Aires, in 2022.