continental federations or their appointees compose the board of directors (Board). The Board manages the work of the ITTF between AGMs. Several committees, commissions, working groups or panels work under the constitution of ITTF or under the Board. Role in diplomacy Unlike the organisations for more popular sports, the ITTF tends to recognise teams from generally unrecognised governing bodies for disputed territory. For example, it recognised the Table Tennis Federation of Kosovo in 2003 even though Kosovo was excluded from most other sports. It recognised the People's Republic of China in 1953 and allowed some basic diplomacy which lead to an opening for U.S. President Richard Nixon, called "Ping Pong Diplomacy", in the early 1970s. The ITTF also approved unified Korean team to compete at the World Table Tennis Championships in 1991 and 2018. In reaction to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ITTF banned Russian and Belarusian players and officials from its competitions. Rules Player eligibility For ITTF world title events, a player is eligible to play for his association by registering with the ITTF. If the player chooses to play for a new association, he shall register with the ITTF, through the new association. The player will be eligible to play for the new association after three, five, seven years after the date of registration, if the player is under the age of 15, 18, 21 respectively. The player will be eligible to play for the new association after nine years if the player is at least 21 years old. Service and point system The table tennis point system was reduced from a 21 to an 11-point scoring system in 2001. A game shall be won by the player or pair first scoring 11 points unless both players or pairs score 10 points, when the game shall be won by the first player or pair subsequently gaining a lead of 2 points. This was intended to make games more fast-paced and exciting. The ITTF also changed the rules on service to prevent a player from hiding the ball during service, in order to increase the average length of rallies and to reduce the server's advantage. Today, the game changes from time to time mainly to improve on the excitement for television viewers. Speed glue ban In 2007, ITTF's board of directors in Zagreb decided to implement the VOC-free glue rule at Junior events, starting from 1 January