Luciano Rossi, narrowly defeated for the Presidency of the ISSF yesterday, led Italy's successful bid to host the 2019 World Shotgun Championship in Lonato del Garda ©FITAV

Italy secured consolation for Luciano Rossi’s narrow defeat in yesterday's International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Presidential election when Lonato del Garda beat off two rivals to win the 2019 ISSF World Shotgun Championship here today.

Lonato won comfortably in the decisive poll, securing 140 votes to Larnaca’s 109 and Granada’s 14.

The result came even though the proposed timing of the event in early July follows immediately on from the 2019 European Games in Minsk at which shooting is a participating sport.

Daniele Ghelfi, a member of the Italian Skeet Shooting Federation, promised flexibility.

On the final day of a landmark ISSF General Assembly, delegates also agreed to stage the 2020 Junior World Championships at Suhl in Germany, upgrading a scheduled World Cup competition.

They were noticeably less accommodating regarding a proposal from the executive for membership fees to be increased in 2019 and 2020 from CHF1,500 (£1,180/$1,500/€1,330) to CHF2,500 (£1,965/$2,500/€2,210) a year.

A plan to increase affiliation fees to the ISSF was voted out by a large majority of Member Federations ©ISSF
A plan to increase affiliation fees to the ISSF was voted out by a large majority of Member Federations ©ISSF

This was defeated heavily by 201 votes to 33 with one abstention.

One delegate observed that, since the amount of money in his Federation’s bank account was "just shy of €1,500 (£1,330/$1,700), if we have to pay such a large amount, we will have no Federation".

With the ISSF reporting a 2017 deficit of €731,788 (£649,324 /$827,814), even allowing for its near €4 million (£3.5 million/$4.5 million) a year International Olympic Committee subsidy, it badly needs to increase revenue.

However, membership fees currently yield only just over €100,000 (£89,000/$113,000) a year.

Today’s proceedings also saw the final touches put to the ISSF’s new-look leadership, with 15 Administrative Council members elected.

The successful delegates were: Australia's Catherine Fettell, South Korea's Lee Dalgon, Greece's Alexandros Dimakakos, China's Liang Chun, Israel's Yair Davidovich, Finland's Pekka Kuusisto, Hungary's György Nagy, The Netherlands' Egbert Ijzerman, France's Hugues Senger, Iran's Ali Dadgar, Venezuela's Gerardo Trotta, Singapore's Michael Vaz, Sweden's Christina Ahlstedt, Germany's Hans-Heinrich von Schönfels and Cuba's Rafael Guerra Mollinedo.

The cumbersome process took eight rounds of voting.