The discipline has been selected for the programme of the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires.

However, an accusation was made in a petition entitled "Get the WDSF's Hands Off Hip-Hop", which has been sent to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and calls for the WDSF to be expelled from the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF).

The petition has been set up by Serouj Aprahamian - a Lebanese-Armenian breakdancer and political activist who grew up in Los Angeles in the 1990s - through change.org.

Break dancing was added to Buenos Aires 2018 during last month’s IOC Executive Board meeting, alongside karate and sport climbing.

Competition will be held under the auspices of the WDSF, which describes itself as the international governing body for competitive amateur ballroom dancing.

The petition says the WDSF has "absolutely no connection or credibility with any legitimate entity in the worldwide breaking community" and states it is a "travesty and a scandal" that the Buenos Aires 2018 Organising Committee and the IOC "have allowed these impostors to oversee breaking at the Youth Olympics".

The WDSF has responded by encouraging those people who often cast the body as a "ballroom" organisation to look back at the 2013 World DanceSport Games in Taiwanese city Kaohsiung, where more than 20 different events in 14 disciplines were contested under the unified brand "DanceSport". 

The inaugural edition of the Games "visualised best what the 'DS' in our acronym stands for", according to WDSF, which followed up the event by beginning work on its 2020 VISION - a plan that defines the future strategies for DanceSport's continued development and growth in popularity.

In a statement sent to insidethegames, a WDSF spokesman claims IOC President Thomas Bach and other sports leaders repeatedly congratulated WDSF on its foresight and initiatives.

"Maybe it is for this reason that the IOC Executive Board trusted the WDSF to bring breakin’ to the 2018 YOG," the spokesman adds. 

The WDSF says it is collaborating with a number of organisations in competitive break dancing in an attempt to ensure that as many constituents as possible are given a voice in the shaping of the events at Buenos Aires 2018.

The Urban Dance & Educational Foundation (UDEF) Pro Breaking Tour and associated organisations Freestyle Session and Silverback - all of whom have no current role with break dancing at the 2018 Youth Olympics, either official or unofficial - have said they are "supportive of the fact that the Olympic Movement is going to give competitive breaking a trial run with the 2018 Youth Olympics".

"We have spoken with several senior-level staff members at the WDSF and we are confident that the WDSF and its national affiliates around the world will be making efforts to involve people from the actual breaking community in all aspects of the preparation for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games," a joint statement reads.

"The concern within parts of the US breaking community about the WDSF and the Youth Olympics is well understood by the WDSF at the highest levels, so the voices of the breaking community are being heard loud and clear.

"Representatives of the WDSF have reached out proactively to many people from the international breaking community, including some of the top event organisers of b-boy/b-girl competitions in the world.

"Our view is that it will be more productive to give the WDSF a bit of time to get organised and to interview volunteers from the breaking community than to concern ourselves at this very moment with who may ultimately control Olympic-level breaking, or how breaking might be presented to the public in an Olympic format.

"In the long run, the breakers will control breaking at the Olympic level, and at every level."

The "Get the WDSF's Hands Off Hip-Hop" petition, which can be accessed by clicking here, currently has 2,008 supporters and is targeting 2,500.

It has been delivered to five leading figures, including Bach and Frankie Fredericks, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for Buenos Aires 2018. 

Danka Barteková and Adham Sharara, members of the IOC Coordination Commission for Buenos Aires 2018, have also been sent the petition along with Buenos Aires 2018 chief executive Leandro Larrosa.

"The WDSF has indicated that it was ready to work with all key players in the sport and we are confident that they will put up a quality event in Buenos Aires with the best young athletes in the world," the IOC said in a statement.