When one is an IHF insider, particularly in an exposed position such as that of the Referee Chief, one has to be careful about commenting openly and spontaneously about new issues and ideas; they can easily be misunderstood as formal proposals that are about to be introduced, or at least as ideas that have been carefully thought out and tested. So in my capacity of a former IHF insider but now just a web writer, I can be more carefree and bring up topics just for the purpose of provoking reactions and discussion. My provocation today involves the question if there is now a need for additional eyes, as far as the refereeing of games at the absolute top level are concerned.

In part 2, a week from now, I will comment on aspects such as more intensive utilization of the communications system recently introduced for the referees and the supervisor in events at the top level of handball. I will then also touch on the utilization of video cameras and replays in games at those levels where this might be feasible. Positioning will be another consideration. And I will also discuss ways of taking education and training a bit further in the efforts of helping the referees to see and understand what is happening on the court, involving areas such as anticipation, concentration, attention and decision-making. But today I want to concentrate on the question as to whether it would make sense to consider [u]introducing a third referee in games at the highest levels[/u]!

It is almost exactly 40 years since the 2-referee system was officially introduced in handball. (Of course, I am fully aware that in many parts and levels of the overall handball world it remains necessary to use only one referee in a game, simply due to the shortage of qualified referees). During these 40 years, the game has developed tremendously, especially at the elite level. IHF and continental/federations have made major efforts to help the referees through refined instructions regarding work distribution, positioning and running paths. There has been a lot of emphasis on ‘understanding the game’, as a requirement for better anticipation and positioning. Conditioning and agility have been emphasized, partly in combination with a rejuvenation of the referee corps at the international level.

But the basics of the 2-referee system, in terms of the ‘diagonal’ approach and the work distribution have remained unchanged during the entire 40-year period. Is it not reasonable to think that the time has come, at least to [u]examine[/u] whether the existing system is optimally used and even whether it has reached its limits; in other words whether there is scope for adding a third referee at the [u]elite[/u] level?! In the next few paragraphs I am [u]not pushing[/u] for such a change. I will merely try to bring out some of the aspects that would need to be considered in detail. But in doing so, I am naturally hoping that somebody will find the time and the energy to examine these issues in practice!

Clearly one should not consider adding a third referee without analyzing thoroughly the purpose and the role. As I see it, it should add a position, ‘side referee’, that allows someone to observe the action between attackers and defenders in the critical area, between the 6-meter and the 9-meter lines, from another (often better) angle, standing at the side-line. It should also provide relief for the ‘goal referee’ and the ‘court referee’ so that they could focus more on actions away from the ball, which in the case of the goal referee means a more constant focus at the 6-meter line without any conflicting priorities. The court referee should be able to stand further back from the players with a chance to get a broader overview, not necessarily following the ball movements so much, in a position that would also help at quick turnovers.

The main concern if adding a third referee is that there would now be one more person feeling compelled to ‘justify his/her existence’. In other words, one would have to guard against too much overlapping in the responsibilities, especially between court referee and side referee, with a risk for unnecessary or premature interventions. Teamwork and trust would become critical, and ‘preemptive’ communication (through microphone/headsets), like “I have it”, would minimize the risk that a referee feels that it is necessary to step in for a colleague who in fact has decided [u]not[/u] to whistle. There would also have to be a basic guideline that the court referee mainly takes situations outside the 9-meter line and/or near his side-line, while the side referee is the main person for situations between 9 and 6 meters and/or near his side-line.

Obviously, what I have just outlined is only one possible model for using three referees, and experimenting and comparisons might lead to new ideas. There would be a number of specific details to work out under such a system. For instance, would the three referees move up and down the court during long periods without changing their relative positions? This would mean that the ‘side referee’ would be in that role at both ends. (Instead of the current diagonal, it seems clear that the goal referee and the court referee would be near the same side-line). Would it under this system make sense to keep the side referee at one and the same side line all the time, or should one shift the whole ‘triangle’? And another detail, how would one best handle the 7-meter executions? But these are details in the overall scheme…

What I would sincerely hope is that unavoidable transitional problems, like under any type of change, would not discourage people from at least considering the whole idea. Of course such a new system would require adjustments and adaption, but this is what we handled well when the 2-referee system was introduced. Also, during any experimentation, it would be important not be too quick in jumping to conclusions in one direction or the other. Different variations should be tried and one should have a lot of time for feedback from the participating referees. And the testing would have to be done under realistic conditions and in events with elite teams, because this is the only relevant level.

In recent years, the IHF has embraced the notion that the rules and referee development must go hand in hand with the developments in the game itself. Therefore I am optimistic that there will be an interest in looking further into the potential advantages of having a third referee at the elite level.

As many of our readers know, Greenland, the land of Inuits, is a place with a [u]fanatic interest in handball[/u]. In fact, measured per capita, there is no other nation with more handball players. Greenland has been a Danish territory since 1721, but more recently with a ‘home rule’ provision. Last year, Greenland obtained ‘self rule’ status, following a referendum, a vital step towards formal independence. In sports, Greenland does not have an Olympic Committee, but eight major sports are coordinated by a national sports federation. Handball is indeed a vital activity for the youth in Greenland.

Greenland is a full member of the IHF since 1998 and has participated in numerous World Championships in different categories. In fact, Greenland took part in the Women’s Junior World Championship in Korea last month. The allocation of Greenland to the Panamerican continent has at times been controversial, both on grounds of principle and for the practical reason that it creates a continent with huge distances for travel. But in reality, the only ones who have been forced to cope with such travel are the Greenland teams themselves, frequently traveling to South America, as no Panamerican events have been allocated for hosting by Greenland.

One other concern that has been heard from various Panamerican sources over the years is: ‘how can we know that we are really playing against a true Greenland team, as it is normal for the players to travel under Danish passports’. In the end, I think the other countries have been convinced by what I know to be an absolute reality: the pride of the people in Greenland in their athletes and teams who represent them abroad would never permit a situation where a non-native would be allowed on a team.

While the Inuits of Greenland thus have had their special status and issues in their international sports participation, there is another group that is facing similar but even more awkward problems. Many here in the U.S. are familiar with the sport of lacrosse, although not everyone knows a lot about its origins. Just like I was relatively unaware until recently, I think there would also be a widespread lack of awareness that lacrosse exists in some many countries around the world. The Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) has about 25 ‘full members’, 15 ‘associate members’ and 35 ‘emerging nations’.

BUT the biggest secret, at least to me, was that the Haudenosaunee nation (six Iroquois Indian tribes) is a full member of the FIL!!! If you are intrigued and want to learn some further details about this nation, then I suggest that you ‘google’ and check out some web sites, but suffice it to say here that these North American Indians are the ones who [u]invented lacrosse[/u] in its original form. (It was described in 1636 by a French missionary as the ‘Jeu de la Crosse’). Even more astonishingly, they are highly competitive internationally today. For instance, the Iroquois men are ranked [u]fourth[/u] in the world, behind Canada, USA and Australia, but ahead of England!

The crux, however, is their long-standing and proud independence. The Haudenosaunee nation has treaties with the U.S. that go back two centuries, and they have been traveling around the world on their own passports for over 30 years, for instance participating in previous lacrosse world championships. Suddenly this year, just before the start of the Men’s World Championship in England, the U.S. government announced that these passports would no longer be valid. (Security concerns involving the old-fashioned, partly hand-written passports appeared to be the reason). This decision was totally traumatic for the Iroquois, not just because of the planned travel but for much more fundamental reasons related to history and culture. In the end, the U.S. State Department backed down, but unfortunately the U.K. government did not, so the team had to stay home.

To complete the circle back to [u]handball[/u], it should be noted that American Indians participated for two years in the mid-1990s with their own a team at the U.S. nationals in handball. It was an all-star team, put together after nationwide try-outs, that participated with some modest success on the men’s side. (A women’s team had also been put together but was not seen to be competitive enough.) The whole endeavor was made possible through the support of the Native American Sports Council (NASC).

My understanding is that their interest in handball remains. Both the NASC and many tribal leaders recognize the potential value of sports, also at the competitive level, as a way of providing inspiration and an outlet for young Native Americans. Many of them are growing up under miserable social and economic conditions, and they are facing a difficult situation with huge unemployment and limited prospects. My contacts with a former national team player (at the Olympic level) and referee, Dan Foster, who is back at his family’s Sioux reservation (Rosebud in southernmost South Dakota), suggest that a resurgence might be viable with some support from USA Handball.

Heiner Brand is known to be very much ‘engaged’ in the games where he is working as a coach. This means that he reacts spontaneously and visibly to what happens on the court, whether it involves a ‘dirty’ action by a player on the opposing team or a referee decision with which he clearly does not agree. And sometimes it may even go beyond ‘spontaneous’; if the coach of the other team starts acting theatrically or ‘pleading’ with the referees, then Heiner is alert and knows that he may need to ‘balance’ this action to ensure that his own team is not put at a disadvantage.

This could be misinterpreted, as if Heiner Brand was disrespectful of referees and their role, but that would be absolutely wrong. In all my years as a supervisor or spectator in games where Heiner has coached, I have never found him to go too far or to show a lack of respect for others; emotional, yes, but only in the heat of the battle, and never vulgar or nasty like some of his colleagues. On the contrary, away from the game, he always shows a great understanding for the task of the referees and is ready to discuss and propose ways of improving things.

Therefore, as on other occasions over the years, it was a pleasure in Chicago, in connection with the recent Germany-Poland game, to have a chance to chat with him along these lines. We talked about recent trends and general problems, for instance going back to the overall observations from EURO2010. Heiner seemed to have seen ‘the same games’ as I did. He had general concerns about the lack of consistency from one referee couple to another, and from one game to another. Clearly this makes the job of a coach more difficult. In particular, he (like I myself) had in mind the balance between defensive and offensive fouls, and the not always so clear ‘line’ in applying progressive punishments.

Heiner Brand also expressed worries about the continuing difficulties that referees have at the top level in observing correctly what happens in the ongoing battle at the 6-meter line: what goes on when the ball is not there, and who initiates the illegal methods? Another area of continuing inconsistency, as far as Heiner was/is concerned, is the judgment of passive play. Perhaps as a ‘good student’ of Vlado Stenzel, he is of the opinion that there may be some merit in the arguments for introducing a time limit for each attack. He noted that this would then have to be supplemented by a new way of viewing and punishing fouls, perhaps along the lines of the accumulation of personal fouls in basketball.

But beyond these specific comments, Heiner Brand emphasized his general concern: the game has become more difficult for the referees to handle at the absolute top level, and the increased emphasis on education and training may not be enough. From his vantage point, the main objective of any rules changes in the near future must be to facilitate the task of the referees, for instance by looking for different ways of reducing the need for subjective judgment. It would be natural for Heiner to suggest rules changes that would facilitate for him and his players, but it says something about his mentality when instead he focuses on ways of helping the referees!

In his posting yesterday, John Ryan applauded IHF VP Miguel Roca for an 'unusually candid interview' on the IHF web site, regarding the many horrors of the recently finished Women's Youth World Championship in the Dominican Republic. I agree, but what for me is more significant is that the IHF allows a World Championship to be organized in a location where there are known reasons to expect serious shortcomings.

It is easy to criticize the organizing country, but this is not the whole story. An organizer may have completely overestimated its capacity and/or underestimated what is involved in hosting successfully an event of this magnitude; and sometimes one might feel that a federation should know better than to ask to be the host.

But the reality, also in this case, is that there are always enough people in the IHF and the Continental Federation who should know what the situation is, and should use their best judgment to make a clear recommendation for or against. The decisions are these days formally taken by the Congress, but this is not so important; a Congress will not really allocate an event if the IHF Council clearly is against it. In fact, such a proposal would not even be put to a vote.

It is also a reality, unfortunately, that sometimes a lower level event is not seen as 'such a big deal' and so there could be a tendency to allocate events on a political basis or in a carefree manner. In my IHF years, I sometimes heard comments like 'it is only a youth (or junior) event'… But, to mention just some examples, should these teams have to put up with a situation where buses get lost or never arrive; should they have to face a communications and logistics chaos? should they have to deal with power outages during entire matches or during the critical stages of the final? And should they have to be concerned about their personal safety!!!

Clearly, political considerations and carelessness are not explaining everything. To some extent, the participating teams themselves share in the blame. The teams have to pay a daily fee per player to cover hotel, food , transportation and everything else. And often a proposal from a potential host is met with the outcry that the daily fee is too high to be affordable. Indeed, in Europe most countries who have reliable conditions and experience from organizing events have given up the idea of being hosts, because they are seen as too expensive!

So to find organizers that are low-cost countries but still have the capacity to handle a World Championship in a solid manner becomes a difficult balancing act. It seems to me that those federations who know that their teams tend to qualify for many of the youth/junior events must also appreciate that they 'cannot have it both ways'. You cannot expect it to be both inexpensive and wonderfully organized. Because there are not many countries who have the resources to be such generous and competent hosts, and your teams deserve fair and solid conditions.

Most participants in our sport tend to have their personal opinions of the rules of the game. But generally one just has to accept what has been decided and adapt accordingly. So it is easy to forget how things used to be and, conversely, one might not remember that some specific aspects have not always been the way they are today. Without any attempt to be scientific or systematic, here is, for your possible amusement, a collection of changes from the last 30-40 years:

Considering that it has almost become a sport in itself to come up with new colors and designs for the ball, often matching the colors of the country organizing an event, it is hard to believe that until 1985 there was an absolute requirement that the ball must be of one solid color.

Most of you will still remember the old ‘referee-throw’, used after an interruption without a foul or any other violation. But while we during 1981-2001 used a ‘jump ball’, like in basketball, only the old-timers will remember that before 1981 the method was to bounce the ball hard against the floor with all players waiting 3 meters away.

Some rules have an origin in the outdoor 11-a-side handball, with some features similar to football/soccer. So it is not so strange that we had a ‘corner-throw’ until 1981, when it was realized that one could just as well use a throw-in from the corner.

A key element in the judging of passive play is now the ‘forewarning signal,’ which was first used informally in 1981. But do you remember that before that time it was possible to give a free-throw directly without forewarning; and repeated passive play was earlier supposed to lead to 2-minute and 5-minute suspensions!

At the lower levels, it is still common to use only [u]one[/u] referee in a match. But did you realize that the 2-referee system has only existed since 1970. Before that time we used 1 referee plus 2 goal judges; and in international games we had line judges like in soccer!

It seems perfectly natural that you are allowed to dive for a ball that is rolling or stationary on the floor. But this was prohibited until 1997. Previously it was only allowed to dive if the ball was in the air.

The ‘team time-out’ was included in the rule book for the first time in 1997. But it is then more remarkable that it was already used in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, as a special exception at the request of the TV broadcasters. When this was suddenly decided, the IHF had to scramble to work out the exact procedures. You get no prize for guessing correctly who invented the ‘green card’.

Did you realize that until 1974 you had to execute the throw-in with two hands, and with both feet in contact with the floor, in football/soccer fashion? If you did it incorrectly, your team lost possession.

The 7-meter throw has for the longest time been tied to the notion of ‘destroying a clear scoring chance’. So can you imagine that before 1981 the referees could award a 7-meter throw also for a particularly ‘dirty’ foul anywhere on the defender’s half of the court and completely unrelated to a scoring chance?

In my early years as a referee I hated the rule under which directing the ball in to your goalkeeper led to a 7-meter throw. Because it meant that a very young player who got confused and clearly directed the ball (but without really being conscious of it) caused a 7-meter; by contrast, a very skilled and experienced defender could do it ‘sneakily’ so that the referee could not say for sure that it was intentional; and a 7-meter was in any case a totally excessive punishment. Finally it was changed to a free-throw in 2001.

The ‘yellow card’ was introduced in 1977, and the ‘red card’ followed in 1985, when the distinction between the (almost never used) ‘exclusion’ and the ‘direct disqualification’ was introduced. (I hope you noticed that the ‘exclusion’ was eliminated in the new rule book effective July 1 this year!)

After it had become an ‘epidemic’ practice for players who had been called for ‘steps’ or ‘offensive foul’ to bring the ball and prevent a quick restart for the opponents, it was decided in 1981 to make this punishable with a direct 2-minute suspension. The effect was immediate and every player now knows instinctively to drop the ball and move away. This is a matter of envy for our counterparts in football/soccer.

In 2005 it was concluded that it really does not make sense to give a free-throw when an attacker enters the goal-area of the opponents; if one instead simply regards it as a goalkeeper-throw, then the restart is more flexible and potentially much quicker.

Until 1981, it was important for both the referees and the players to notice and remember if a ball had been gone out over the goal-line outside the goal or if it had been caught by the goalie in the goal-area; in the first case, it was then required for the opponents to step back and wait outside the 9-meter line. Fortunately, this distinction is no longer relevant.

Finally, one of the most important changes in terms of impact on the game was introduced in two stages in 1997 and 2001. The objective was to speed up the restart after a goal had been scored, including the elimination of delays caused by the opponents. So, from 1997, the throw-off could be taken without waiting for the opponents to get back to their half; but the impact was not quite as great as had been expected.

To make the restart even more dynamic and to put more pressure on the defenders, it was then decided in 2001 to allow the teammates of the thrower to start moving on the whistle signal, instead of waiting until the ball has been played. And this (difference of up to 3 seconds) did have the desired effect, so that the now common tactics of a ‘quick throw-off’ can be very spectacular and successful.