There are many who want to describe the football World Cup as the main sports event in the world. Perhaps this is because it involves the one sport that virtually every country in the world takes an interest in. By contrast, the Olympic Games include a lot of events that are rather unknown in many parts of the world. Of course, many patriotic observers in the U.S. will keep insisting that everyone should know that the real football is the sport that is played primarily with the hands… But when an unfortunate football referee from Mali becomes a front page figure in the U.S., then it seems that football=soccer finally has gained some prominence also in this country.

Unfortunately, it seems that the enormous focus on this one event every four years has its drawbacks. It seems that this contributes to the many negative aspects that dominate the reporting and the reactions. Perhaps we are better off in handball having our World Championships more often, so that it is not a world disaster if a team fails. Perhaps it is the knowledge that the next chance does not come until four years from now, that makes coaches and players throw their sense of sportsmanship, decency and fair play overboard!!??

Yes, there have been several nice and exciting matches among the first 34 played; there have been many fantastic goals scored, and we have seen many great individual performances. But this has been almost overshadowed by the many negative incidents. To some extent it almost seems to be a matter of tradition or culture. The same teams, even when they are winning easily, are the ones guilty of provocations and unsportsmanlike action. Often it seems to be related to star status and arrogance; some players and teams somehow expect to be getting special treatment when they are up against some more ‘obscure’ opponents. This tendency is, regrettably, not totally unknown in handball.

The most irritating element has probably been the faking or ‘theater’. Referees are rightly criticized when the show the ‘red card’ for something that the TV replays confirm as being much less serious. And the criticism is also rampant when a player seems to have deserved a penalty-kick but the referee waves ‘play on’. But in reality the players are the ones who create most of the difficulties by constantly resorting to major ‘drama’, totally exaggerating the impact of minor body contact or pretending to have been fouled when nothing really happened. Such behavior should be punished more strongly, because if the players have nothing to lose by using such methods, they will never be discouraged. But being certain enough to be ready to punish is a difficult situation for the referee. I hope our top referees in handball see how damaging such methods can be and therefore feel encouraged to be alert in observing the theater and strong in punishing it.

Another disputed situation involves ‘handball’. Even the expert commentators seem confused about the rules and do not know how to distinguish between ‘intention’ and ‘advantage’. The concept of ‘natural body position’ also enters into the equation. We probably have a clearer or simpler situation in handball, but it also seems that recent rules changes have helped reduce the controversy in our case. Moreover, the punishment for ‘hands’ in football can be more drastic than what is typical in the case of ‘foot’ in handball.

Overall, the main observation concerning the refereeing involves a lack of consistency. There has not been a ‘clear and common line’ among the whole group of referees, especially as regards the personal punishments given. One would have thought that the group of 24 referees who are used in South Africa would be more synchronized, as they have been used over and over in youth World Championships and in other international events in recent years. We do not want to see ‘robots’ but, just like in handball, major differences between referees cause major problems for the teams who do not know what to expect and have a hard time adapting quickly in each game. The IHF and the continents are increasingly working continuously with selected groups of referee couples, so one would hope that the difficult aspect of consistency will gradually see improvements in handball, but as recently as in EURO 2010 it was a definite issue, so it will present the IHF with a challenge for the 2011 WCh.

Finally, I feel I need to point to one particular situation where we now for many years have been better off in handball, and where I find it absurd that our counterparts in football are too stubborn to follow our example. This involves a situation where a player is injured on the field also in the absence of a foul and a free-kick. To avoid the ‘drop ball’ restart, the players feel obliged to send the ball out over the side line, whereupon the opponents are expected to use the throw-in to get the ball back to the team that had it. This act of ‘sportsmanship’ is typically applauded by the spectators. In handball, in similar circumstances, we simply let the team keep the ball after a restart with a free-throw, and a restart with an indirect free-kick would clearly be a feasible solution in football. FIFA seems to agree, but they find it ‘too strange’ on grounds of principle to use a free-kick if there has been no infraction…

Good luck FIFA with the rest of the World Cup, and please try to set us a better example during the remainder of the event!!!

As we reported in advance of the meeting, https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.1014 the Forum of Club Handball (for men’s clubs in Europe) and the EHF met recently in connection with the EHF ‘Final Four’ and, as expected, there was mutual approval of the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ that had been prepared for this meeting.

This means that there is mutual recognition of the roles of the two parties and their sharing of certain values and principles, and more concretely there is now agreement that work will proceed on a number of key issues: the competition calendar; the issue of compensation for clubs when players are used by their national teams; and insurance to provide compensation in the case of injuries in such situations. It is also clear that the EHF formally recognizes the FCH as representing the interests of European men’s clubs and that the FCH will be officially represented on specific EHF organs.

This is obviously a welcome indication of substantial progress; [b]but[/b], it must be kept in mind that it is limited to the area of the EHF’s jurisdiction and it is, for the moment, encompassing only the men’s clubs. Clearly, the EHF and FCH are hoping that the new ‘understanding’ will make it clear also to the IHF that no further delay is realistic as regards the establishment of a similar agreement on a global basis. And indeed, we now have it from ‘sources close to the IHF president’ that the pressure seems to have worked, as the IHF Calendar Working Group has suddenly been called in to a meeting in the next few weeks. At the same time there will apparently be a meeting between the IHF Executive Committee and its EHF counterparts. Let us hope that this creates the necessary momentum for an expansion, so that an ‘understanding’ based on the EHF/FCH model can promptly be established at the global level.

But we hope we are correct in assuming that it is just a matter of a brief period of time until the corresponding measures are also being put in place also for women’s handball. It could be argued that there is, in some very specific respects, more urgency for action on the men’s side, but surely it must be accepted that the whole spectrum of issues regarding competition calendar, release and compensation, and insurance applies also to the women. In fact, it is somewhat surprising that there have no been no pointed reassurances expressed by the EHF, which tends to be rather non-discriminatory in its approach, that the ‘understanding’ with the FCH will soon be extended to the women’s clubs. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the FCH has no direct counterpart for the women, and with the seeming reality that the women’s clubs have not been as vocal and cohesive in their demand for equal attention. Why is that?

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.