The Federation

From military origins to a discipline open to the public

Judo appeared in Tunisia in the 1940s, at the El Aouina barracks near Tunis, where the French gendarme Maurice Gruel (1920–2010, later a 9th dan and a major figure in French judo) set up a makeshift dojo and introduced young Tunisians and French residents to the discipline. The sport then spread to Tunis, Sfax and Sousse, but for a long time it remained a practice confined to closed gyms, reserved for an urban elite.

The opening-up to the wider public dates from the late 1940s: the capital’s first club opened on rue Fénelon, in the Lafayette district, under Jim Al Cheikh, a 2nd dan black belt of Algerian origin regarded as the first genuine judo teacher in Tunisia. In 1957, the brothers Chedly and Abderrahmen Ben Hamida founded the first club in the northern suburbs at Sidi Bou Saïd, moved in 1961 to La Marsa under the banner of the Avenir Musulman — the forerunner of today’s AS Marsa. Gyms opened in the same period in Sfax and Sousse. Until the mid-1960s, these clubs remained independent, with no federal coordination.

A federation born of a diplomatic friendship

The founding event was a friendship formed in Tokyo between Slama Mounir, a Tunisian official posted at the Tunisian embassy, and a Kodokan instructor, master Oshikiri. Having become the first Tunisian black belt of the Kodokan, Slama Mounir, with the agreement of the Ministry of Sport, invited the Japanese master to come and develop judo in the country. In 1965, Oshikiri Sensei spent six months in Tunisia — a founding episode in Tunisian-Japanese cooperation, from which the discipline, until then left to individual clubs alone, began to be genuinely organised at national level.

The Tunisian Judo Federation was founded in 1966, in the wake of master Oshikiri’s 1965 mission. Slama Mounir became its first president.

Decentralised since 1976

For its first decade, the Federation remained centred on Tunis. In 1976, the creation of regional leagues put an end to this centralisation; the first, the Southern League, brought together the clubs of Sfax, Kairouan, Sousse and Gabès. This league-based organisation still structures Tunisian judo today.

A continental and international standing

The Tunisian Judo Federation holds a recognised place in international judo bodies: Hédi Mhirsi, then president of the Federation, was elected treasurer of the African Judo Union in 1991, and Dr Hédi Dhouib, a former president of the Federation, served as secretary general of the International Judo Federation from 1994 to 2011 — one of the highest positions ever held by a Tunisian official in an international sporting body.

Tunisia has hosted the African Championships four times (1968, 1994, 2004 and 2018, the last of these at the El Menzah Sports Palace) and has staged the Grand Prix de Tunis, a stop on the International Judo Federation circuit, three times — drawing as many as 335 judoka from 46 nations at the 2018 edition.

Governance

The Federation has been chaired by Skander Hachicha since 2012, re-elected for a third consecutive term (2020–2024) at a general assembly held at the judo hall of the Cité nationale des jeunes in El Menzah. His executive board has driven projects to upgrade regional halls and to create an accommodation centre for athletes. The Federation’s statutes and operating rules are set out in the FTJUDO statutes and the sporting and organisational code.

Today

The Tunisian Judo Federation governs judo and its associated disciplines — aikido and kendo — across the whole of Tunisia, through the regional leagues that are heirs to those created from 1976 onward. Its practice is grounded in the moral code of judo and its eight traditional values.