Icelandic Fencing Federation President Mateev is a vice-president of the EFC, Scarso is Honorary President of the Italian Fencing Federation, and Luxembourgish official Tesch is a former International Fencing Federation (FIE) Executive Committee member.

Mateev compered for Bulgaria as an athlete before moving to Iceland in 1991, where he is credited with helping the sport expand from around 10 to more than 300 fencers.

Mateev is President of the FIE's Promotion, Communication and Marketing Commission, and has been an EFC vice-president since 2016.

Scarso is a former FIE Executive Committee member who was named an Honorary President of the Italian Fencing Confederation in 2020.

Tesch was the President of Luxembourg's National Federation from 2010 to 2021, a member of the EFC Executive Committee from 2013 to 2016 and is a former member of the FIE Executive Committee.

The EFC has been led by secretary general Jacek Slupski of Poland since Pozdnyakov was deposed as President in May.

The EFC Executive Committee conducted a unanimous vote of no confidence in Pozdnyakov in March after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the ROC President was voted out of office at an Extraordinary Congress in May.

Candidates had until the start of this month to submit their applications to replace him, and the election is set to be held on October 1 in Poland's capital Warsaw.

Fencing has been among the sports impacted the most by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the FIE President Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born Russian oligarch, stepping aside having been sanctioned by the European Union.

Both the FIE and EFC have also implemented International Olympic Committee recommendations and banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from their events.