Just days before the start of the 2025 World Puzzle Championship (the Championship), I have decided—after much reflection—to publicly share my experience with the event’s organizers. My aim is to shed light on the reality behind the scenes and to call out the arbitrariness and lack of transparency I have encountered.
I will also expose the misleading use of the name World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation (WJPF). In reality, the WJPF is not legally registered as a ‘Federation’ in any country, despite appearances in Spain. This name disguises itself under a veneer of altruism and love for puzzles, while the truth is quite different.
My name is Cristina López Rodríguez, and since the very first edition I have been involved in the World Championship—both as a participant and as a collaborator. Beyond competing, I have helped set up the competition area, kept time during rounds in which I wasn’t participating, provided live commentary, welcomed international participants at the airport, and even assisted them in finding accommodation.
Here’s a polished version of your chronology that keeps all the facts and dates intact but makes it flow better and read more clearly:
- January 20, 2025 – I registered for the Championship through the WJPF website from my user profile and received a confirmation from WJPF.
- April 2, 2025 – WJPF canceled my participation in the Championship without providing any explanation.
- April 2, 2025 – I sent three emails to the WJPF organization (info@worldjigsawpuzzle.org): the first asking for the reason for my cancellation, the second regarding not being allowed to register for the pairs category, and the third about my user account being canceled and my inability to create a new one. To this day, I have received no reply to any of these emails.
- April 12, 2025 – I contacted the official and associated organizations of the WJPF (listed at https://worldjigsawpuzzle.org/members) to explain my situation and ask for clarification. Only Norway replied, saying they could not help because they were not involved in organizing the Championship.
- April 20, 2025 – I sent a follow-up email to the same organizations. No one replied.
- May 5, 2025 – Through my lawyer, I sent a burofax to WJPF. I have never received a reply.
- June 30, 2025 – I wrote to Ravensburger, sponsors of the Championship, outlining the situation to that point.
- July 11, 2025 – I received an email from the personal account of Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio (listed on the WJPF website as running the office and handling executive functions of the alleged Federation and President). In it, accusing me of a defamation campaign and a series of other lies, as well as wanting me to remain silent (https://worldjigsawpuzzle.org/about / https://worldjigsawpuzzle.org/contact)
- July 16, 2025 – Ravensburger replied, distancing themselves from operational or participant-related decisions. They stated they would encourage the organizers to review my case and provide a reasoned response (which never came). They also expressed their wish that all participants be treated fairly and transparently.
- August 17, 2025 – I replied to Alfonso’s personal email in response to his repeated attacks and the continued lack of any institutional reply from WJPF.
- September 1, 2025 – WJPF emailed me to say that I was now admitted to the Championship.
- September 4, 2025 – I informed them that with only 14 days’ notice, participation was impossible. I could not reorganize my personal and professional commitments, nor secure affordable accommodation. By then, I had also been excluded from the pairs and team categories, as my teammates had already found replacements. In that same email, I urged the organization to act more transparently in future editions and avoid such arbitrariness.
This final email effectively summarized the entire situation triggered by the cancellation of my participation in the Championship and, more importantly, by my exclusion as a user of the WJPF website. For months, I was prevented from taking part in various international events, as registrations were processed exclusively through that platform—and my account had been blocked. For this reason, I explicitly requested that I not be removed from the website again, so I could at least participate in future activities requiring registration there. Needless to say, this request also went unanswered, and to this day I have never been refunded my registration fee.
It is now necessary to explain why the WJPF IS NOT, IN REALITY, A «FEDERATION», despite what its website suggests. According to its own page (https://worldjigsawpuzzle.org/contact), the WJPF is headquartered in Valladolid and therefore subject to Spanish law. Under Spanish law, associations are non-profit entities created by an agreement between at least three legally constituted natural or legal persons, who commit to sharing knowledge, resources, and activities to pursue lawful goals of general or particular interest. Such a founding agreement must include approved bylaws, formalized in a founding act—either public or private. If WJPF is indeed an association, then it should have bylaws. Yet these either do not exist or, at the very least, have never been made publicly available for consultation.
Associations may, in turn, unite to form federations, confederations, or unions. By law, these are second-level entities whose promoters and members must themselves be legally registered associations. Specifically, federations and unions require at least three associations, while confederations require at least three federations. In all cases, they must be domiciled in Spain, either at their official headquarters or where they primarily carry out their activities—something the WJPF also fails to demonstrate.
Therefore, the WJPF cannot be considered a true Federation with legal personality; rather, it is an entirely unlawful entity, as it does not comply with Spanish regulations and is not registered with the Ministry of the Interior (National Register of Associations), as would be required if it were legitimate.
This raises an essential question: If the so-called Federation is not a legally recognized entity able to issue invoices for the events it organizes, then who is actually behind the invoicing?
The truth is that the Championship is actually organized by the private company Global Puzzling, S.L., whose sole administrator is Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio. This company is duly registered in Spain, and its details are publicly available here:
https://opendata.registradores.org/directorio/-/sociedad/1000110796871/global-puzzling-sl.
It is this company—not the WJPF—that issues invoices for the revenue generated from Championship registrations, so the main financial beneficiary is that company and not really the WJPF.
In future publications, I will shed light on the different falsehoods that have been told, the situations I have endured, and the possible motives behind this incomprehensible treatment.
For all these reasons, it is clear that behind the organization of the Championship there is no genuine altruism or love of puzzles, but rather other interests. The purpose of these publications is to bring to light «what lies beneath«.
mundopuzzlero.com 