Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS; English: World Underwater Federation) is an international federation that represents underwater activities in underwater sport and underwater sciences, and oversees an international system of recreational snorkel and scuba diver training and recognition. Its foundation in Monaco during January 1959 makes it one of the world's oldest underwater diving organisations.
Origins An international congress of diving federations representing all underwater disciplines met in Brussels on 28 September 1958. National delegates attended from following countries: Belgium, Brazil, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, Monaco, Portugal, Switzerland, the United States of America and the former Yugoslavia. Following a decision at that congress, a meeting was held in Monaco on 9–11 January 1959, which officially established the World Underwater Federation, with an acronym based on its French title as CMAS. A founding member and key proponent of CMAS was the French underwater explorer and diving pioneer Jacques-Yves Cousteau who was chosen to be the inaugural president with Luigi Ferraro, Italian underwater pioneer, appointed as vice-president. CMAS succeeded the Comité des Sports Sous-Marins (Underwater Sports Committee) of the Confédération Internationale de la Pêche Sportive (CIPS) (International Confederation of Sport Fishing), which was founded on 22 February 1952.
Organisation CMAS consists of three major committees – sport, technical and scientific. These committees are overseen by a board of directors (BoD) elected periodically at the annually convened general assembly. The BoD, the sport committee and the scientific committee oversee sub-committees known as commissions. Day-to-day operation is overseen by a steering committee appointed from the BoD. Its headquarters is currently located in Rome.
The steering committee The steering committee consists of eight members. Since may 2025 (GA in Egypt), the members are:
Sport committee CMAS Sports Committee is the world governing body of 11 underwater sports:
Aquathlon Freediving Finswimming Spearfishing Sport diving Underwater hockey Underwater orienteering Underwater parasports Underwater rugby Underwater target shooting Visual (Underwater photography and Underwater videography) Across these sports, CMAS organises the several world championships: Year in brackets () denotes inaugural event
Underwater Orienteering World Championships (1973) Finswimming World Championships (1976) Underwater Hockey World Championships (1980) Underwater Rugby World Championships (1980) Underwater Photography World Championships (1985) In 2007, CMAS organised the inaugural CMAS World Games in attempt to boost popularity of underwater sports by hosting all world championships as one event. However, this ultimately failed as it brought too many sports outside of their pre-established calendars, resulting in the 2007 event being the only one ever organised and played.
Technical committee
Role The role of the technical committee is the provision of "safe diving for CMAS members" and seeks to achieve this by "promoting world class standards for all aspects of Scuba Diving and ensuring adherence of them by member federations and dive providers". Its officers who are elected from persons nominated at the CMAS General Assembly by affiliated national diving federations include the following positions – president, secretary, standards director, education director, technical director, diving security director, special tasks director and a number of general members. It oversees the two following systems – a diver training standards system known as the "CMAS International Diver Training Standards" and a certification system known as "CMAS International Diver Certificates". Since CMAS effectively started as a volunteer organisation for hobbyists, its courses tend to reflect the full range of European and world diving standards. Compared to other diving organisations which may be more geared towards holiday and tropical water diving, and while organisations like PADI or SSI tend to bring divers into the water immediately, CMAS entry-level training is more extensive, featuring more "classroom" delivered theory.
Qualifications
Standards, certification and training delivery The CMAS Technical Committee has developed a qualification system currently known as the "CMAS International Diver Training Standards" which consists of published universal standards for recreational diving, technical diving and leadership diver grades. The CMAS Technical Committee has also developed a diving certification system called the "CMAS International Diver Training Certification System" for most of its diver training standards and which permits divers that have been trained in accordance with the CMAS International Diver Training Standards, to have their training recognised worldwide particularly in countries where CMAS affiliated federations exist. The system includes a double sided certification card format where one side depicts the achieved CMAS standard while the other side has details of the issuing organisation and the diver. CMAS itself does not provide training or conduct the issuing of certifications – this is available from two sources. Firstly, from national diving federations affiliated to the CMAS Technical Committee using their member diving clubs, their member instructors where the federation is exclusively an instructor organisation or by agreement with independent underwater diving training organizations operating in the countries where those federations are based. Secondly, from specially accredited dive centres known as "CMAS Dive Centers" (CDC) who use dedicated CMAS training materials.
Recreational diver training programmes
Standards are offered for recreational diver training for the following grades of scuba and snorkel divers.
Snorkelling
Speciality diver training programmes Standards are provided for the following speciality training for recreational divers:
Self-Rescue Diver – Scuba gas planning skills, bailout to emergency gas supply carried by the diver, management of multiple gas cylinders, deployment of a decompression buoy from depth, tethered buoyant emergency ascent, use of long hose regulator, self-release from entanglement, and use of backup diving equipment.
Technical diver training programmes Standards are provided for the following technical diver training grades:
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