When John Ryan convinced me about a year ago to help him out with some occasional columns for the THN, I did not quite figure that I would find it so enjoyable that I would get to posting number 100 in less than a year. I do not want to make too much of such a modest ‘milestone’, but at least I wanted to find a special topic for it. Listening keenly to the very interesting audio interview that John Ryan recently had with USA handball federation chairman Dieter Esch, made me conclude that I should write about my experience with the relations between U.S. handball and the IHF and the international handball community.

In the interview (which I really urge you to take the time to listen to), Dieter Esch commented that it should really be obvious that it would be good for the global success of handball if our sport could be given the support needed to develop strongly in the U.S. Clearly he had hoped to find that especially the IHF would be a strong and willing partner in such an endeavor. However, after considerable efforts during his tenure in charge of the U.S. federation, it seems that he has already come to understand that it will not be so realistic to count on much IHF support. Instead, he has concluded that support for progress in the U.S. would primarily have to be obtained through bilateral arrangements with some key federations and leagues in Europe.

On the basis of my very long experience inside the IHF (32 years), while simultaneously being immersed in the handball situation in the U.S., I am afraid I must agree with the conclusions drawn by Dieter Esch. His predecessors in U.S. handball, especially Peter Buehning, tried hard in all kinds of ways to gain some momentum inside the IHF in favor of a concrete and systematic development effort in the U.S. It was often very easy to get positive, or even enthusiastic, verbal expressions of support. Clearly, many IHF leaders intellectually appreciated the potential benefits for world handball and the IHF, if major progress could be achieved in the U.S. But from there to favorable decisions and actual action, the step always seemed too large.

One could observe several fundamental reasons: first and foremost, regrettably the focus on strategic and longer-term aspects in the decision-making was always weak. Frankly, the IHF persons of influence were much more inclined to think in a narrow and short-sighted way, when resources were to be allocated. So a more selfish emphasis on supporting the immediate needs in one’s own continents and countries tended to be prevalent, something that I have previously noted in my general comments on the IHF structure and decision-making processes. Therefore, the idea of investing in something that would (or at least could) be more for the overall good, and more for the longer term, would tend to lose out. It has just not been the IHF approach.

But then there is also the unfortunate impact of some misunderstandings. For international sports officials it just does not seem normal or reasonable to grant special resource allocations in favor of projects in what is overall the wealthiest country on earth. In many parts of the world, it is understandably difficult to grasp that specifically in handball there could be a need for treating the U.S. like a poor and weak member country. It just does not fit the image of a country that is so dominant in a large number of other sports and seems to have unlimited resources within the realm of professional sports. That all this does not do U.S handball any good, and in that in fact it might even be a handicap to be dwarfed by rich and traditional U.S sports, may be hard to appreciate.

Conversely, it may also be hard, from a U.S vantage point, to accept that the IHF resources are not exactly unlimited. Indeed, the amount of money allocated annually to genuine development aid around the world is embarrassingly modest. Whether this is an appropriate and necessary state of affairs may be a different matter. Similarly, the IHF clearly does not have its own resources in terms of personnel resources for technical work around the globe. For such efforts, IHF must rely on borrowed resources from some of the stronger member nations, and it may then in reality be more interesting for such countries to get involved on a bilateral basis.

But there is also another, quite different, side of the issue. For a possible investor, regardless of the field involved, there tends to be an insistence that the recipient of the resources must show clear signs of being able to provide a return on the investment. In the case of U.S handball, there can be little doubt that the potential is there, but it has to be admitted that the track record is discouraging. I have personally heard comments to the effect that’ helping U.S handball with money would be like putting the money into a sink hole’, or that ‘your compatriots never seem to have their act together’.

What these observers have had in mind when making such comments are notions that over the years there has been too much emphasis on national teams as a ‘locomotive’ and that the grassroots level has been neglected. Handball persons from abroad have also had the opportunity to notice, as a negative surprise, the low quality of play at the U.S Nationals or other club competitions. The sense that the U.S. federation largely failed to use the handball tournaments of the 1984 and the 1996 Olympics as strong ‘jump starts’ has also been frequently been used as an argument for being skeptical about the usefulness of supporting U.S. handball from abroad. Moreover, there are impressions in the minds of observers that U.S. federation leaders have been poorly organized, spending too much time on internal disputes instead of trying to pull in the same direction.

So while Dieter Esch and his colleagues are trying hard to give the U.S. handball federation a fresh start, both in terms of demonstrable progress and in terms of the perceptions created for the benefit of handball people in the IHF and abroad, it must be understood that there is quite a bit of old ‘baggage’ to be reckoned with. This makes it all the more important that the program and the results of the federation quickly begin to show that there is indeed a new approach that deserves global support.

Last September, the European Football Association (UEFA) made it publicly known that the number of football matches under its jurisdiction that had had to be investigated for gambling-related manipulation had sky-rocketed. This involved either qualifying or first-round matches in UEFA competitions between obscure teams from smaller football countries, or league matches in some of the same countries. Such matches take place without much media coverage and ‘strange’ things can happen without much risk for discovery. But despite the relatively modest importance of such matches, they can be of great interest to gambling firms; not necessarily European-based or legal gambling firms, but illegal ones based elsewhere.

UEFA proudly announced its collaboration with a special agency, ESSA (European Sports Security Association), which supposedly would enable UEFA to discover immediately irregularities in gambling patterns or other irregularities that would provide indications of manipulation. Similarly, the European Handball Federation announced roughly at the same time, before the start of the 2009-10 season, that drastic new measures were being taken to identify and prevent problems related to gambling and attempts to approach and influence referees. Of course, such intentions of influencing referees may not necessarily be related to gambling; they could simply be related to the desire of a team, a sponsor, or a federation to win a particular game with any means necessary.

I was commenting at the time https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.834 that it might be a bit naïve or optimistic to believe that such efforts by the UEFA and the EHF, no matter how welcome and well-intended, might necessarily be sufficient to stop the trend towards increasing corruption and game manipulation. I was also lamenting that the IHF seemed to be very slow in appreciating and reacting to the problems already haunting so many of the major sports and their top events. In particular, I was concerned about the pressures that inevitably exist as such high-exposure events as the men’s and women’s World Championships. The IHF has subsequently taken some decisions that are in the right direction, such as increased remuneration for the referees so as to reduce their vulnerability, and additional supervisory staff in the area of refereeing at the big events. It is difficult to believe, however, that this will do a whole lot to deter unscrupulous companies and individuals from attempting to use our highest-level handball events for their dirty business.

Against this background, it is interesting, but also quite scary, to read the very recent statements from one of the most prominent writers and researchers on how gambling is affecting high-level sports, namely Dr. Declan Hill from Canada and the U.K. He obtained his doctorate at Oxford precisely on the topic of match fixing in professional football and he is the author of the book ‘The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime’. He also maintains a very interesting blog: http://www.howtofixasoccergame.com/blog/?p=113

Dr. Hill has kindly made available to me the following text, which I have decided to provide below in its entirety. Its focus is on what we can expect at this year’s World Cup in football in South Africa, which will get underway in just a few days. The gist of his comments is that the methods used by UEFA (and to some extent EHF) might work well for events and matches where the volume of gambling is limited and anomalies therefore can more easily be detected. However, for events such as the World Cup, the overall amounts are so huge that amounts related to manipulation are likely to go undetected. Moreover, as Declan Hill, emphasizes, the part of the gambling market that can be more easily monitored is the legal one; by definition, the illegal gambling market operates in such a way that it does not lend itself to monitoring and detection. How much more time do we have before the world championships in handball are finding themselves in the same dangerous position? Or are we already there, without being aware of it…? Here is the text from Declan Hill:

J’accuse FIFA

Match-fixers will be at the World Cup in South Africa. They will be there approaching players, referees and team officials and trying to bribe them to fix matches. They will be there because they have been at almost every international football tournament – the Under-17 World Cup, the Under-20 World Cup, the Olympic Football tournament and the Women’s and Men’s World Cups – for the last twenty years. They will be there because there has been no effective action on the part of FIFA to clean up this problem.

Here is a list of some of the things that FIFA could have done to make sure that the tournament was corruption-free.

One, FIFA should pay the players directly. The fact is that some of the athletes competing at the world’s biggest sporting event still do not know how much money they will be paid or even if they will be paid at all. It is this dynamic that drives match-corruption. Now, FIFA pays money to the executives of the national football associations. Those executives are supposed to pay their players. However, while most of the executives are honest; some are regarded by the players as so deeply immoral that they would steal money from their own grandmothers, and the players do not trust them.

[i](You will get to the rest of the text if you hit 'read the rest'):[/i]

There are some commentators who are naïve enough to say that World Cup players should be playing only for patriotism or the love of the game. Good point, if no one was getting any money. But as those athletes run onto the field, they know the stadium is sold-out, they know they are being watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world (the 2006 final was seen by 5% of all humanity who have ever existed) and they know that corporations have paid billions of dollars in sponsorship money and television rights. So someone, somewhere is getting a lot of money, why aren’t all the players on all the teams being rewarded properly?

It is very easy to stop the problem. FIFA should pay the players directly. There should be wages and incentive bonuses for every game won, for each stage of the tournament a player helps his team reach, even for the number of goals that a player scores. This money should be directly into the players’ bank accounts by FIFA. These amounts should be publicly announced. This way all players know exactly how much they are supposed to receive and if national associations or sponsors want to add to this money – great. But each World Cup player should not only know how much they will be paid, they should know they will be paid and paid well.

Two, FIFA has implemented an ‘Early Warning System’. It is a good start and a bad joke. It purports to be able to detect signs of World Cup match-fixing by monitoring the gambling market. This is almost impossible. The amount of money bet on World Cup Final matches is so high – estimated at $40 billion for the 2006 World Cup – that observers cannot detect ‘unusual betting patterns’. They can do it for minor matches in obscure leagues; but they cannot do it for the world’s biggest sporting tournament. Moreover, the Early Warning System relies on information from legal, mostly European, bookmakers. They cannot independently verify the betting market where the fixers do most of their work – the illegal Asian gambling market.

Don’t believe this statement? Then take the word of one of the men who runs the Early Warning System – Wolfgang Feldner. Mr. Feldner is hard-working and deeply ethical. He has openly stated the problems of detecting fixes at the World Cup. In November 2009, Mr. Feldner said, “As good as the early warning systems are, they will hardly be able to check the black market. You can’t get information from betting companies that officially do not exist.”

The problems of the Early Warning System don’t stop there. Many bookmakers still do not share information about who is betting. So the EWS officials may be able to tell there is a lot of money on a game, but they cannot tell who placed it. This is a problem. A hypothetical example, there may be $100 million bet on England to beat the United States in the opening rounds. The EWS can see that money, but they cannot see if it is merely 20 million enthusiastic England supporters all betting $5 each, or the wife of one of the American players betting $100 million that her husband’s team will lose.

Finally, there is a still list of unasked and unanswered questions dating back to September 2008 publication of The Fix, about the relationship between the fixers, their runners and some players (The list is available on www.howtofixasoccergame.com). The questions have not been asked because there is no investigating body specifically tasked to deal with it. FIFA has not established what is standard practice in every North American sport, and increasingly other international sports like ATP tennis and cricket, an integrity unit staffed with ex-policemen and gambling experts. In September 2008, after the publication of The Fix, Michel Platini the president of UEFA, established such an integrity unit for European football. It was instrumental in uncovering a wide network of fixers working in 9 different European countries. Why hasn’t FIFA implemented a similar team?

Until these very basic steps are implemented, the fixers will be back, they will be approaching players and referees and they may, unfortunately, find a few who are willing to listen to them and there will be more fixed matches at a World Cup tournament.

These days, when border security and migration are hot political topics in the U.S., and pros and cons of the trade agreements with Canada and Mexico remain a matter of debate, it is reassuring to observe that in the world of handball there is still room for a friendly and undisputed interchange across our northern and southern borders!

As John noted in his posting from the U.S. Nationals yesterday, a team from Houston was totally dominant on the women’s side, but the remarkable discovery was that they were really a team consisting of Mexicans; no, not ‘guest workers’ in the traditions of Texas, but very temporary guests from Monterrey and other areas close to the border. Monterrey has been one of the prime locations for handball in Mexico in recent years, and it has been a natural thing for them to collaborate with the handball folks in Houston who are also a bit isolated from the nearest handball ‘hot spots’ within the U.S. And this time they took the step of providing an entire team to fly the colors of the Houston Firehawks, fully in accordance with the regulations for the U.S. Nationals. (And, yes, they do have visas for the U.S…. this is what made the entire endeavor feasible!)

Some observers noted that Mexico had qualified as a substitute team for the ‘under-21’ World Championship later this year, so there was some speculation about a connection with the team representing Houston, especially as the team seemed to be very well prepared and cohesive. However, there is no such connection, and the team has to cover its own expenses, as there is no specific support from the Mexican Federation; of course, this does not mean that the Federation is not proud to have one of its teams do so well north of the border. It also appears that the star of the team, who was voted MVP at the U.S. Nationals, is currently playing for a Spanish club.

Then we move to the Canadian side of the border. This year, the Canadian and the U.S. Nationals took place during the same weekend. The Canadian event was held in Edmonton, Alberta. Although the Canadian Championship is based on a competition among teams representing the respective provinces, the Canadians still see it as an ‘open’ event, where teams from the U.S. are welcome to participate. Such cross-border participation might not have seemed natural this year, precisely as the two Nationals coincided, but one of the traditionally strongest U.S. club teams, Condors, was in Edmonton nevertheless.

The Condors had committed to the Canadian event long before the U.S. Nationals were moved from its tentative date in July to this past weekend. Moreover, it seems that the Condors had some scheduling conflict for the tournament where they would have needed to qualify for the ‘Elite’ division. In any case, the Condors became a very popular participant in Canada, especially due to the spectacular play of up-and-coming star Gary Hines and the veteran star Darrick Heath, still showing some of his patented moves. In the end, however, the Condors ran out of steam a bit, drawing on only one goalkeeper and seven court players. They qualified for the bronze medal game but lost. The medal winners on the men’s side were: Alberta, Quebec, and Manitoba.

During the Championship weekend, the Canadians also held their election congress. After about eight years as President, Ward Hrabi was ousted. (My interview with Ward from a few months ago can be found here: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.911 ) It seems likely that inter-province politics played a role. Ward has always been a ‘straight shooter’, standing up for sound principles and strong beliefs. This was often particularly obvious when he was ready to take on the Pan American federation establishment, on occasions when the South Americans were all too ready to run roughshod over the legitimate interests of the North Americans. He has always been a strong proponent of U.S.-Canadian collaboration and interchange. So also in USA Handball there are reasons to be grateful to Ward for his efforts over many years. I bet he will not quit as referee, so perhaps we will he see him in that capacity at the 2011 U.S. Nationals!? We wish him well, and the same goes for his successor, Rick Ryll from Alberta.

I do not need much encouragement to make some propaganda for the refereeing and to get handball people interested in this job. It is of course a function that is absolutely necessary for the quality and development of our sport. We need to be able to keep recruiting new referees. But it is an aspect of handball that, contrary to what one might conclude from the ease with which players, coaches and spectators seem to be able to justify criticism against referees, really has a number of very positive sides.

Those who have spent a number of years in refereeing will typically mention the challenges, the pressures involved in doing a high-level game, and the satisfaction derived from handling such a difficult job. But almost everyone will also highlight the camaraderie and team spirit among the referees as one of the main sources of enjoyment. The referees may be competitors for the opportunities to move on to higher levels, and it is often tempting to sit in the stands and have a different opinion on a situation. But generally speaking, there is a good deal of loyalty, mutual respect and friendship, partly because the referees feel that their colleagues are the only ones who really understand and appreciate their situation.

So it is not surprising that ex-referees who were colleagues for many years often find it a bit special to have a chance to gather in a relaxed atmosphere, perhaps over a few beers now that there is no longer a need to worry about the next fitness test. There are always a lot of ‘war stories’ to share and laugh at, both situations that are proudly remembered and others where one can now afford to admit that an observation or a decision was totally wrong. Often photos from games or from the social side of an event or a trip will help jog the memory and contribute to the ‘smart remarks’ and the volume of the laughter. I had the pleasure of being part of such a gathering a couple of weeks ago. We had no qualms about referring to it as a ‘dinosaur weekend’…

In U.S. handball we have only had a grand total of about 15 former IHF referees plus our current couple (Gosia Golus-Szubelak and Monika Nowak). To get the blood-pressure rising among some of our ‘ancient’ coaches, and to get some of our old-time players to bring out their ‘voodoo dolls’ all over again, I will remind about some of the names. It started in the late 1970s, when six of us became licensed in a course supervised by the then IHF PRC President Carl Wang. The others were Henri Schaff (who passed away prematurely), the Soviet emigrants Efim Faybusovich and Mike Furman, and the (then) younger ‘all-American’ Peter Buehning Jr. and Bernie Iwasczyszyn. Peter Jr and Bernie went on to referee in the 1984 Olympics and the 1986 Men’s World Championships. For the rest of us the emphasis was on PanAmerican competitions in addition to the events here at home. The latter included the Goodwill Games and a large number of invitation tournaments where some of the top national teams from Europe came over.

Then we had a new wave, where Thomas Bojsen was our Olympic and World Championship referee, first together with Bruce Boehne and later with Buco Anusic. During this period we also had IHF referees such as Bruce Mosberg and Thomas Kekes-Szabo in the Junior WChs. For this group, there were also frequent opportunities to handle the Latin American rivalries involving Argentina, Brazil and Cuba. But all along, we naturally also had the U.S. Championships, our U.S. Olympic Sports Festivals etc. So even in the absence of a national league, the opportunity for stimulating events was always there. But it clearly was, and remains, an extra challenge to recruit and retain referees in a setting where there is no ‘league pyramid’ with frequent matches of top quality and intensity.

The same difficulty exists in the majority of countries outside Europe, and also in some ‘smaller’ handball countries within Europe. The working conditions may not be ideal, the federation resources may be limited, and the teaching and mentoring of new referees leaves something to be desired. Moreover, the modest level of play may allow some of the enthusiasts to keep playing up to a relatively ‘advanced’ age. BUT, I really encourage all of you out there, both younger and older handball enthusiasts: refereeing is a great way to be part of the sport you enjoy, it might the best way in which you can contribute in your country, AND it really is likely to be a lot of fun — even if you now and then will get a reminder that you are not perfect… And while there are no retirement benefits in a financial form, you will have a lot of great memories to share with others!

There is nothing wrong about events that use the best players in the world to make good propaganda for our sport. Indeed, I hope that the IHF could work out arrangements with leagues and clubs that make ‘all-star’ matches in different forms and suitable locations a good and uncontroversial way of creating good PR.

But it is something totally different, if one wants to arrange something that purports to be some kind of World Championship for club teams. Such an event can be well justified, although perhaps not necessarily every year. The non-Europeans club teams follow the EHF Champions League with envy, and clearly relish the opportunity to play against such opponents.

This kind of events could take many forms, in terms of the number of participants, the format for the event, the scheduling in the annual calendar etc. But to deserve any respect and have any meaning, such an event must then really be an event between genuine club teams.

It is not enough to say that is in accordance with existing transfer regulations that a Qatari or Lebanese club participating in Super Globe can use its vast financial resources to borrow some of the best players in the world for two weeks in order to be competitive in the Super Globe! Why then did not the IHF subsidize the Australian club so that they could borrow some top players from Montpellier, Veszprem or Hamburg…?

Who in the world of handball could really take the results from such an event seriously? Who would find it relevant if a Qatari club with the help of Balic, Lazarov, Alilovic, Jorgensen et al. manages to beat a Lebanese team with similar reinforcements, a Brazilian team without such reinforcements or even a Ciudad Real that is getting ready for what really matters to them, namely the EHF Final Four?

Again, use as many ‘all-star’ events as the players can handle in order to make propaganda. And please do create a serious world championship for club teams. But do not mix and confuse the two concepts in the form we now see in Super Globe! Whoever wins the all-star event in Qatar have no legitimacy as ‘World Champions!’

Link to IHF’s initial announcement: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=57&idart=2636

Link to IHF’s pompous presentation and special web site today: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=345

My very first posting in 2010 was an interview with 'Abbe', 'Mr. Partille Cup'. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.913 In that interview we covered several aspects: the way the build-up of a fantastic youth program was paralleled by the annual organizing of the globally best-known youth tournament (Partille Cup), and the fact that the strong focus on youth handball and international outreach is combined with the ability to field top mens' and women's teams at the elite level.

Yesterday, IK Savehof, the club from the small suburb of Goteborg, became the first club in the history of Swedish handball to win the [u]championship for both men and women in the same year[/u]. Savehof won the men's championship for the third time, while it was the sixth set of gold medals for the women's team since 1993.

There are a few other clubs both in Sweden and Denmark that have top teams on both the men's and the women's side. But looking around Europe it is really an exception that the same club is at the very top of both categories. In the EHF competitions for 2009-10 there were virtually no 'dual' participants, with FCK from Denmark being the main exception with its participation in the group play in the Champions League for both men and women.

Savehof was the favorite in the men's final, after having won the league and then 8 of 9 matches in the play-offs, while Drott Halmstad, a traditional top team, had only placed 5th in the league but then came on strong in the play-offs. The game was tied 10-10 at half-time, but then Drott seemed to pull away comfortable and had a 4-goal lead close to the end. But Savehof managed to equalize (23-23) and then was the stronger team in overtime and won 30-28.

On the women's side, Skovde and Savehof had been superior in the league, with Skovde as the winner and Savehof as the runner-up. But then in semi-finals they both had to struggle, each winning 3 games against 2. In the final Skovde was probably the favorite, but it turned out to be Savehof's day, after strong performances from some of the key players. The final result was 27-23 (15-10).

Undoubtedly, the many friends of Savehof and Partille Cup worldwide join me in congratulating Savehof, 'Abbe' and all his colleagues on this special occasion! At a personal level, I want to convey my special greetings to Savehof's 'grand old man' and founder, Gunnar Qvist.