There are some interesting developments and rumors in the Croatian handball. It is well known that the dominating club on the men’s side, Croatia Osiguranje Zagreb, is undergoing a form of ‘restructuring’, in terms of ownership and status. This naturally is combined with increased ambitions regarding the club’s strength and status on the European scene. One key objective is then obviously to hold on to Ivano Balic beyond his current contract. He is assumed to like the idea of finishing his career at home in Croatia, but someone of his caliber will always be sought after by other wealthy clubs.

But the real ‘coup’ would be if the rumors are true that the club also endeavors to try to sign up Nikola Karabatic next season. http://www.handball-planet.com/2010/10/nikola-karabatic-to-join-hc-zagreb/ The mere thought of a Balic-Karabatic combination at the club level is obviously very intriguing. That would surely create a serious obstacle for the German-Spanish domination in the Champions League. Of course, many observer if the notion of having these strong rivals and handball personalities on the same team is not just a bit too explosive and risky. Would they really be compatible and how would it affect the team’s cohesiveness?

One of the dominating personalities in Croatian handball during recent decades has clearly been Zoran Gobac. He has just resigned from his position as Chairman of C.O. Zagreb, and he has also announced that he will leave his key position in the Croatian Handball Federation next year. http://www.balkan-handball.com/english/co-zagreb-chairman-zoran-gobac-resigned From my observations during my IHF period, Gobac has had a great and positive influence on the status of handball in Croatia. He would surely be leaving on a positive note, if the developments described above were to materialize.

Finally, another key figure in Croatian handball, Lino Cervar, continues be a person in the spotlight. After his many years of great successes, but also some degree of controversy, as the coach of the Croatian national team, he is currently coaching the Macedonian top club team Metalurg Skopje. The desire of the Macedonian Federation has been to get Cervar to extend his services also to the men’s national team. It seems, however, that this will not happen, as the wealthy sponsors of Metalurg frown at the idea of supporting in this a national team that apparently is not enjoying any kind of serious backing from the Macedonian government and its sports authorities.

Yesterday the IHF hosted a brief conference ‘Forum for the Future of Handball’. Discussions were held on three areas of topics: Game Structure and Development, Handball on TV, and Handball and its Partners. This type of conferences often produces very little in terms of new discoveries and great ideas. And it is not realistic to pursue topics very far during just a few hours. But it is still useful to have these events, because ideas that may already exist or be rather obvious may be given some added legitimacy or momentum simply by being discussed in a highly visible forum outside the closed doors of the IHF.

The IHF has issued a brief statement commenting on the main conclusions in the three areas. http://www.ihf.info/MediaCenter/News/NewsDetails/tabid/130/Default.aspx?ID=467 I will basically focus only on the first part, leaving the issues of handball on TV and marketing for later. Generally, it is easy for me to welcome and support the conclusions regarding rules and refereeing, because I have written about many of these topics in recent time.

I am not surprised to read that “the speed of the game has reached its limit” and I fully agree. This is not out of concern for the referees, although that is one consideration, but simply because I have heard numerous top coaches and players express the same sentiment in recent years. The control and quality would suffer with increased speed. And the current pace of the game may be high enough also for the spectators to handle.

From a TV standpoint, I am not surprised to see that there was support for an additional team time-out per team and game. This makes sense, but only in games broadcast on TV. For normal games, the current situation, with one time-out per team and half should remain adequate. Additional ones would cause unwanted extensions of the game at the lower levels.
Of course, I am especially happy to see agreement that the method of ‘video review’ should be pursued in the near future, in support of referee decisions in special circumstances. Over the last year, I have written detailed articles in support of such a development. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.977 https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.1052 But it will require a careful determination of appropriate procedures and safeguard, and it is obviously only realistic at levels where adequate camera coverage is available.

Otherwise I am very content that there was not a ‘flood’ of suggestions for rules changes. This tends to be the ‘easy solution’ when improvements are sought. But at this time there are no glaring problems in the rules, and stability would be important in the near term. Quite correctly, the emphasis was instead placed on measures in support of the top level referees. Also here I have written extensively and recently, https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.1099 https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.1095 noting that the IHF referees continue to need strong support also after they have been able to reach the World Championship level. Cognitive skills, decision-making capacity, and human relations skills are just some of the relevant aspects. And, as always, their understanding of the tactical and technical aspects of the game remains vital.

So, it is nice to be able to support what is being reported. But once again my frequent concern: why where there virtually no current top players in the Forum? Their perspective is very important!

In an article some time ago, https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.908 I described the IHF’s Global Referee Training Program (GRTP) as a success story, but I also emphasized that the ‘hard work needs to continue’. The Program will have its purpose and its initial success undermined, if the former participants do not get the follow-up that most of them clearly need. I noted that the IHF ‘must shift gear and focus more on continued nurturing’.

In this regard it must be kept in mind that many of the GRTP ‘graduates’ come from countries where they cannot count on strong support in the form of technical experts and financial resources. And the match experience will also come extremely slowly and randomly, unless the referees are European and can benefit from the intensive competition program of the EHF. Clearly it is not enough that these referee couples get an IHF event with good supervision and refresher training with one or two years’ interval. It is the continued nurturing that is crucial for referees who are still young and at a critical stage in their career: will they ‘take off’ and become elite level referees, or will they stagnate and find their GRTP training mostly wasted?

If one looks at the issue from a European perspective it is easy to say: ‘we, the IHF, have helped identify these young talents, and we have given them a jump start with intensive education and testing within the GRTP; now it must be up to the national and continental federations to handle the follow-up.’ But this is not realistic in most cases. Apart from the lack of technical experts and other resources, there is also the crucial aspect of a lack of suitable match training on a regular basis. It is not good enough to say: ‘sorry, we cannot change the realities in the continent; the countries in the continent must try to help each other on a bilateral basis etc.’ What must be kept in mind is that, while the initial training of referees within the GRTP obviously is beneficial for individual countries and continents, [u]the main beneficiary is the IHF itself![/u] It is the IHF who needs to bring these referees gradually up to the elite level, so that the IHF can meet [u]its responsibility[/u] of providing adequate refereeing in the senior World Championships.

Clearly, this is not a task that can be handled by a small group of volunteers, such as the IHF Rules & Refereeing Commission. They have the technical expertise, but there are too few of them for the many tasks they need to manage. Every year they have to focus on a number of Youth/Junior Championships and continental events. But they do have additional technical experts who could be utilized on a more continuous basis. So the manpower is not the main obstacle. It depends more on a determination to invest enough in the nurturing phase for the IHF referees, by ensuring that the overall manpower can be assigned to follow the referees more frequently and individually, especially in connection with matches. It also means that the manpower must be spread out, so that there are resources available to set up training camps and test events. And there must be strong, competent resources available from the IHF Office. But mostly it is a matter of budgeting and giving it sufficient priority and prominence.

If, as suggested in some of my recent articles, there is a feeling that the refereeing job at the elite level has become so demanding that one must begin to consider using [u]more than 2[/u] referees in a match, or to use new or expanded methods under the 2-referee system, then it would seem obvious that first of all we need to make sure that the existing IHF referees are more closely and thoroughly supported in their climbing towards the top. If a football referee from Uzbekistan could become the big surprise at the recent World Championship, then this is not explained just by extraordinary personal talent; it is also a testimony to the huge efforts undertaken by FIFA in making such referees ready for the very top. IHF must do the same!

A few days ago, I took our THN readers on an excursion into a possible future, with a THREE-referee system for the elite level in handball. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.1092 The premise was that, at the top level, the speed and dynamics of today’s game offers insurmountable challenges for also the best trained referees. There is simply too much to try to observe and react to in today’s elite handball. So, after 40 years of using the 2-referee system, should we not at least consider the possibility of adding a third referee just at this level, and therefore start examining and experimenting with this approach? There has not been much time for feedback on my thoughts yet, but the feedback I have received has been predominantly positive. Handball people agree with the issue, and many feel that at least an unbiased and unprejudiced examination would be appropriate.

But in my article I also promised this ‘Part 2’ which you have now started reading. Here the focus is more on what things we might do to [u]improve the situation under our current 2-referee system[/u]. Of course, we have been continuously trying for many years to assist the referees with training, guidance and new methods. But undoubtedly more could be done. The basic issue is that the referees need to see more of what happens in the game, with a focus on what is relevant and with greater accuracy. And then there is the correct understanding of what happens and the resulting correct or optimal decision-making.

Clearly more can be done to help ensure, even on a mandatory basis in the case of the elite level, that the top referees spend more time with teams during practices to understand better the modern tactics, techniques and methods. An improved ‘[u]understanding of the game[/u]’ obviously contributes to a more correct anticipation of what happens on the court and enables the referees to improve their positioning. But the game understanding also helps the referees properly focus on the relevant aspect of a situation and to interpret better what they physically see but may not otherwise understand correctly. (I will here just mention fitness as another key component in positioning.)

In part 1 I mentioned briefly the recent rejuvenation of the referee corps at the elite level. In part this has been necessary to replace ‘early retirees’, but there has also been a conscious effort to rejuvenate, in line with the increasing focus on fitness, speed and agility. However, there is a downside to this: experience is not exactly irrelevant, let alone a handicap, in the efforts of a referee to handle the job in an optimal way. It is not enough to anticipate and to physically see accurately. In the many complex situations on a handball court, it is also important to know and detect the most relevant cues in what you see. This largely is helped by [u]experience[/u], by having seen the same type of situation ‘a thousand times before’. The same goes for the ability to interpret the cues and translate them into good decision-making. So it becomes critical to help the talented young referees to get the maximum out of their more limited experience, through professional feedback and evaluations, supported by video from their own games and more generally.

There are also scientific methods that help referees (just like the athletes) to improve their [u]visual attention[/u], to reduce their ‘cognitive anxiety’ (e.g., the pressures of the situation), and to upgrade their ability to ‘read complex patterns of moving objects’, i.e., players and balls. For me the comparison with an icehockey goalie is a good one. He might have a more dangerous job, but he really has be razor sharp in focusing on the relevant aspects of a fast-moving and stressful scenery in front of him. And training is available for such functions.

Moving on to other aspects of technology: I have commented in the past on the great advantages that have already been gained from the usage of [u]wireless communications [/u]between the two referees and a supervisor at courtside. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.801 The referees are getting increasingly used to this new method and use it more and more intensively. It adds an extra pair of eyes in the sense that one of the referees can help his colleague focus on the right aspect of what is happening at a particular moment, and it is also facilitates a timely exchange of information about important trends in the game. But in that latter sense, an extra pair of eyes is also available if the observations of a really [u]competent supervisor[/u] are used more fully. IHF has initially been very cautious, limiting the interventions to a very specific number of serious issues that fit the supervisor’s traditional role. But this needs to be expanded, assuming it is ensured that the person ‘in the loop’ is indeed a refereeing expert, who should then be able to alert the referees in a much broader set of circumstances with observations and advice.

I have written entire articles https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.977 about the prospects of using [u]video review [/u]in certain specified situations in games where adequate equipment and staffing is available, i.e., specifically at the very top level. In such situations, however, the capacity does not have to be used entirely in a ‘defensive’ sense, meaning to sort out a problem after the fact. With a video monitor available to the supervisor in the kind of circumstances described in the previous paragraph, the role of the supervisor and the usage of the wireless communications could also be enhanced. With this I mean that it would help the referee supervisor provide more accurate feedback and advice.

Finally, while there has been a particular focus on providing up-to-date guidance regarding running paths and moving patterns (largely thanks to the efforts of my IHF successor Manfred Prause), especially as it relates to counterattacks and other turnovers, there has not been the same strong focus on positioning under the current ‘diagonal’ approach in the 2-referee system. Yes, the emphasis has been on admonishing the goal referee to focus more exclusively on the action at the 6-meter line, something which by default tends to increase the burden for the court referee. But less has been done to help this court referee, and it seems this should be given more attention. In my personal opinion, one thought would be to suggest [u]more flexibility in positioning[/u], picking up on the main advantage of the ‘side referee’ position under a hypothetical 3-referee system by having the court referee swing over to the side line position with some regularity. But additional ideas would surely come up in a brainstorming.

And my whole purpose of today’s comments and ‘Part 1’ a few days ago, is really to [u]encourage brainstorming and to push for an examination of new approaches[/u], both under the 2-referee system and under a possible 3-referee system. We must guard against the old attitude that ‘everything is already perfect!’