A Korean news report addressing the South Korea – Kuwait Olympic Qualification match has been posted at Google videos. The video is 17 minutes long and includes English language subtitles. In detail, the news report chronicles the events surrounding the controversy and clearly highlights numerous, serious officiating errors. Other highlights of the video include some non-verbal communication between a table official (presumably Kuwaiti) and the Korean bench, the on court intervention of the IHF, and Japanese fan reaction. Additionally, there is some discussion and footage of the Women’s Olympic Qualification matches in Kazakhstan. The Koreans were also concerned with the fairness of this officiating, but apparently it is not quite as obvious as the Men’s competition. Still, it is worth noting that while the Japanese Women have improved, their upset victory over Korea was a major surprise and was also their first victory over Korea in 31 years.
[b]Commentary:[/b] At best, the officiating errors highlighted in the Korea – Kuwait video are the result of inexperienced officiating. At worst, they are simply the deliberate intention of the officials to favor the Kuwaiti team. I haven’t seen the match in its entirety, so it’s theoretically possible the Korean report simply highlights the biggest mistakes of the officiating crew and leaves out all the errors that took place in favor of Korea. But there are 3 elements concerning the match that suggest that a review of the entire match would simply turn up more of the same transgressions. Those 3 elements are:
1) The decision by the Asian Handball Federation (AHF) to replace the neutral and experienced German officiating crew with the inexperienced Jordanian officials is all by itself, controversial and has never been explained or justified.
2) The on court intervention of the IHF representative, Alexander Kozhukov, is highly unusual and speaks volumes as to what was transpiring.
3) The negative and vocal reaction of Japanese fans was highly unusual for a couple of reasons. First, Japanese fans are normally pretty reserved and secondly, due to Japan’s long occupation of Korea the two nations have a historical rivalry, and it is surprising that they would intercede on Korea’s behalf.
Viewers will need to make up their own mind, but quite frankly I can’t see how anyone can come to any other conclusion than that the match was not fairly officiated.
Video: Korean News Report (with English subtitles): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-908556008345758262
The Koreans may have picked the video that was shown, but it sure looked bad to me. I agree changing the referees was a very questionable move, and gave legitimacy to the call for an investigation.
I saw nothing wrong in those videos. I often call line when player's foot is half a foot away from said line. Kamal and Kapur did a great job. They're both heroes to all their friends and families. I am willing to bet that this story will be picked up by the US Media next year in China. Before you know it, the sport of team handball will get some not so good props in the US. Bad press is still good, I guess!
I was the assistant coach of the Japanese team on this tournament. It is discusting what's been going on in Asia!That includes this and previous tournaments as well. I was presented to the Asian games too which was a scandal itself in other disceplines too. However, why is not strange to anyone, that Kuwait qualifies to international events as Asian No 1 and haven't won a single game. when Korea and Japan play international they even go to the main round!? Anyway, Korean and the Japanese game was cheated since 1994, but AHF has never let to propose further. This time Korea and Japan took their last chance by going up to IOC. That risks Handball's place in the Olympic Games. As much as I love handball (I make a living of it) I agree with the steps. Comments like Bogdan's only help believe the Olympic Committee that Handball is not based on clear rules and fair judgement. That video is not only a viewpoint of the Koreans. The hole game had been the same. It would helpful to watch it. Kuwait would need serious video tricks to provide 2 minutes when referees favored their side. I hope there is going to be a fair decision for all sides and handball is only going to develope and not suffer because of some selfish interests.
RoL – The first part of my comment was facetious. I too, agree that here has been a great injustice done to the sport of team handball. Read my previous "facetious" comments on this topic http://teamhandballnews.com/comment.php?comment.news.412 This can only mean one thing! No more Moustafa!
Bogdan – you need to watch the sarcastic comments – lots of site visitors don't know the language well enough to pick them up!
Guys;
I am referee from Asia.
I saw these things with my own eyes several times and the problem is not the skill of the referees .The good ref's are not called to those competitions as simple as that. Asia does not need a referees from Germany or what ever there are many skillful referee's and many CLEAN ref's but unfortunately they are not called for Asian comp's they are somehow BLOCKED from participating .This is point 1.
Point 2: the video show and tries to involve all Middle East countries which is WRONG. UAE stopped from participating , JORDAN team ( not refs) stopped , SYRIAN stopped , Bahrain ( my country ) lost the qualification many time because of this and few years back we can beat Japan but never we can beat Korea .
The only country involved here is Kuwait .even Qatar they were not happy when the beaten korai in the semi final of the Asian games, the ref's are from Kuwait and simply they don’t want to face Korea in the final.
I don’t know when this will stop but it should stop.
And I agree with the Japanese comment here, if we need to stop handball in one Olympic game, let it stop. If it can wake up the world!
One more thing … that Jordanian refree was rereeing the final of the kuwati league last season and they performed very well !! I was supprized when i saw them in Kuwait – Korea .
Forgot one important thing …… IRAQ was banned from intarnational handball after saddam hussain did aqupy Kuwait , I dont know how these kuwaities mix up things .. Iraq is back just know .
Interesting insights, Gali, thanks for joining in!