Pétanque in Libya

Libya's clearest mark on the international pétanque scene came in December 2024, when a Libyan official was elected president of the Arab Petanque Federation at a general assembly held in the capital, Tripoli. Domestically, a Libyan federation affiliated with the international confederation governing pétanque, raffa, and volo has organized at least one national championship in Tripoli since the sport's activities resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Al-Zlitni Elected President of the Arab Petanque Federation

In December 2024, Abu Medyen Al-Zlitni, a Libyan sports official, was elected president of the Arab Petanque Federation during a general assembly meeting held in Tripoli, according to The Libya Observer, an English-language Libyan news outlet. Emad Abu Zreiba was elected first vice president, and the new board also seated Moroccan members Najat Dawdi and Bachir Leqah, Algerians Jamal Kalil and Hassiba Hamel, Mauritanian Mohamed Abideen, Sudanese Yasser Abu Bakr, and Djiboutian Qasim Abdullah. The Arab Petanque Federation is a regional body distinct from the continental CASB/CASP African confederations and from FIPJP itself, bringing together national federations from across the Arab world, including Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, and Tunisia. We could not independently corroborate the election through a second outlet, but The Libya Observer is an established English-language Libyan publication and the report is specific and detailed enough (naming the full incoming board) to be a credible primary account.

A National Championship Restarts in Tripoli

Libya's own domestic activity is documented through the Confederazione Boccistica Internazionale (CBI), the international body that jointly governs raffa, volo, and pétanque - the three disciplines that make up the "boules sports" family recognized by the World Games. Per CBI reporting, a 2021 Libya Championship was held in Tripoli on 13-14 November 2021 with 106 players taking part, described as the Libyan federation's first national championship after a long pause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was followed by the president of the Libyan Olympic Committee and the undersecretary of Libya's Ministry of Sports. In February 2022, Libya's federation supported a CBI national referee course held across the border in Tunisia, chaired by CBI technical committee member Erdal Buyruk.

Because CBI's reporting covers raffa, volo, and pétanque together without always specifying which discipline a given event featured, we cannot confirm from these sources alone whether the 2021 Tripoli championship or the 2022 referee course were pétanque-specific, boules-generally, or another of the three CBI disciplines. Given that the same Libyan federation structure feeds into the pétanque-specific Arab Petanque Federation, it is likely that pétanque is at least one of the disciplines this federation organizes, but a citable pétanque-only club count, national-team roster, or championship record for Libya is not currently available.

Libya at the Mediterranean Games

Libya's boules delegation has a documented, if narrow, record at the quadrennial Mediterranean Games, though it requires careful discipline-by-discipline reading. At the 2022 Games in Oran/Es Senia, Algeria (25 June - 6 July 2022), Rashed Alswesi and Mahmud Issa won Libya's only boules medal, a bronze in the men's raffa doubles event - a distinct discipline from pétanque within the same "boules sports" family the World Games and Mediterranean Games group together (lyonnaise, pétanque, and raffa were contested as separate disciplines at those Games). Libya did not medal in the pétanque-specific events at Oran; those men's doubles medals went to France, Morocco, and Italy.

Looking ahead, the Libya Observer reported that Libya's delegation to the 2026 Mediterranean Games in Taranto, Italy (21 August - 3 September 2026) will number nine athletes across seven sports - athletics, weightlifting, karate, fencing, archery, rowing, and, for the first time in this profile's available sources, pétanque specifically. The individual athlete had not been named in publicly available sources as of this writing.

What We Could Not Verify

We could not identify an official Libyan pétanque federation website, a federation founding date, or a domestic club network from public sources. Separately, the Fédération Internationale de Boules (FIB, which governs the raffa/volo side of boules sports) lists a "Libyan Bowls Federation" among its African member federations, with a committee election reported in May 2017 - but we could not independently confirm whether this body is the same organization behind the Tripoli championships reported by CBI, or how it relates to the pétanque delegation confirmed for the 2026 Mediterranean Games. No Libyan national-team result at a FIPJP-recognized World or African pétanque Championship could be confirmed. This profile will be expanded as soon as further primary sources - an official federation site, additional press coverage, or competition results - become available.