Unlike my story about IHF uniform policies, dated April 1, this is a story that you can believe: London Transport has come up with the great idea of honoring as many as 361 prominent Olympic athletes by temporarily naming all of their Underground (‘Tube’) and Overground stations after them, in connection with the Olympic Games this summer. Clearly it is a matter of prestige to have been included in the group of the 361 to be selected in this manner.

Handball is not a sport with great traditions in Britain, but we managed to get at least four of our best known former (and, in the case of Balic, probably continuing) Olympians selected. Naturally, this could cause a debate about other noteworthy handball players having been left out, even if the choice was limited to athletes who have had an impact in the Olympics. Perhaps there could have been room for a representative of the French and Norwegian gold medalists in 2008 or a Gatu, Horvat or Turtjina from the 1970s.

It is not surprising that the list is dominated by the ‘big’ Olympic sports, such as swimming, boxing, gymnastics, basketball, and especially track & field. Football is less represented, as the names in football, like a few other sports, reflect the non-Olympic status of athletes from certain sports during long periods. It seems that those who decided about the list at least tried to avoid discrimination by gender or nationality. In fact, there is no information available about who was involved in the selection process, so we do not know if federations had any role at all.

Efforts have been made to group athletes together by sports. The entire ‘District’ and ‘Circle’ lines are dedicated to runners, e.g., Carl Lewis, Wilma Rudolph, Usain Bolt, Marlene Ottey, Michael Johnson, Herb Elliott, Maria Mutola, Emil Zatopek and, of course, Sebastian Coe, the boss for the entire event in London 2012. The jumpers got placed on the ‘Metropolitan’ line, among them Beamon, Boston and Fosbury. Edwin Moses has been used as the diplomatic choice for the Wimbledon station; it might have been too controversial to pick a particular tennis player for that. But Nadal, Federer, Agassi, Graf, Becker, the Williams sisters and several others appear in other locations.

Michael Phelps has received a special location of honor, at the Stratford station, which is the stop for the Olympic stadium and area. Muhammed Ali (a.k.a. Cassius Clay) got the international station near Stratford. Swimmers also include Dawn Fraser, Johnny Weissmuller, Kornelia Ender, Ian Thorpe and Matt Biondi. Boxers include Teofilo Stevenson, Laszlo Papp, Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael Spinks, Joe Frazier and several others. The gymnasts feature Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.

‘Dream teams’ in basketball have left a mark, and the names at the apex of the ‘Northern’ line look impressive: Bird, Barkley, Ewing, Jordan, Bryant, James but also old-timer Oscar Robertson. The women’s group includes Cheryl (Miller) and Sheryl (Swoops). But American women also come through in football: Hamm, Wambach, Scurry and Chastain each got a station, as did Brazilian Marta. On the men’s side we go from Hungarian legends Puskas and Kocsis to current stars such as Messi and Tevez.

I do not think we should take the choices and the omissions too seriously, but surely you agree that this is a pretty smart way to be reminded about great Olympic moments and performers from the past!

I hope the IHF will not be upset that I reveal some new information before they have had a chance to announce it. But I think it is relatively harmless, so I will go ahead and use my inside information. The issue involves a new policy regarding uniforms that will need to be reflected in both the Playing Rules and in the Competition Regulations. In order to give teams a chance to adjust in preparation for the 2012-13 season, when the new policy will become effective, the IHF is planning to announce it very soon.

As most of you know, for many, many years we have had frustrating situations both in championship events and at the grassroots level, when the two teams have come to a game with uniform colors that are too similar, or when there have been some problems with the colors of a goalkeeper. And it has often been frustrating for the referees to try to anticipate what colors to use for a specific game. I can also recall all the technical meetings in championships where a lot of time was spent on discussing and agreeing on the colors for each game. So, quite wisely, the IHF has decided that something needed to be done to make everything simpler and clearer.

Amazingly, as the U.S. influence on world handball has not been very great over the years, it seems that the ideas for the solutions have come from the sports scene in U.S.A. Of course, here like in all other parts of the world, the teams and their fans have really strong feelings about the traditional colors of their teams. But they have come to accept that, in a very systematic way, they must be used to the reality that their teams essentially use different colors for the home and away games. This principle is what is now being adopted by the IHF for handball globally. The result should be that, for each game, both teams will know which uniform to wear, without any discussions or confusion.

Quite interestingly, it seems to have been easy to reach agreement on the basic principle, but the specific method apparently required some discussion. In a nutshell, the question was: should the IHF follow the NBA, the NHL or perhaps the NFL? Let me explain to those who do not follow these events so closely: in the NBA, the home team plays in light-colored uniforms and the visitors in dark uniforms. In the NHL it is the opposite. And in the NFL the home team always uses its favorite colors (light or dark) and the away team must adapt.

In the end it seems that the IHF opted to follow the NHL approach, requiring the home team to wear dark colors (primarily red or blue or a combination of the two, such as stripes or purple). The visitors then wear white or possibly light yellow or grey. The reason was that the home team fans like to wear their team colors in some way, and it makes for a more colorful and spectacular scene if they can wear strong colors. I did not mention green. That is because this color has been reserved for the goalkeepers. It may cause some irritation with some teams that green has eliminated as a choice, but it was seen as more important to achieve complete standardization for all goalkeepers.

And the referees? Well, here it is apparently back to all black! This may not be appreciated by some flamboyant referees who have become used to looking a little bit like ‘peacocks’ in recent years. However, I guess the IHF saw it as almost the only practical solution. If they had asked me, I might have suggested that ‘zebra’ stripes would be better. Not because I think it is such a great design, but simply because it would have created a better contrast to dark blue.

Personally I support the overall change. I do not know if it comes primarily from the rules side under Manfred Prause or from the competitions side under Leon Kalin, but I congratulate those who came up with the idea. It is likely that some teams will complain initially, perhaps especially the teams who have long traditions with green uniforms. But surely they can find ways to use green in a logo or in the trimming of a uniform in another basic color. Clubs like THW Kiel may also not be happy, as neither white nor black can be used at home, and any thoughts about returning to stripes must be forgotten. But I am confident that Kiel’s star qualities extend beyond their uniform colors. Perhaps a strong pink or dark orange color would suit them!?

Both I myself and the IHF would certainly welcome YOUR views on this new approach!

I just recently wrote about uniforms, although the context then was the issue of the head scarf. I noted that our handball rules are amazingly vague as to what constitutes a proper ‘uniform’. So among other things, I was asking if we could interpret the rules to allow the beach style bikinis in indoor handball (assuming, of course, that they had enough room for player numbers)…

Little did I know that we would now suddenly have reason to raise the issue of the bikinis required for women players in beach handball! I had listened to John Ryan’s podcast and chats with some members of our USA beach handball team, and I was a bit amused when I heard that they seemed to have difficulties in figuring out how to put on their bikini uniforms. And I remember only too well that, in the supposedly liberal or emancipated Scandinavian countries, there had been major protests when the IHF made it mandatory for the women to use bikini-style uniforms. They thought this was insulting. But part of the IHF ‘excuse’ was that it simply followed the example of beach volleyball.

So I was now a bit surprised to read a few days ago that beach volleyball has decided to stop making the bikinis mandatory. In fact, the obligation has really been to wear a bathing suit, so one-piece bathing suits have already been allowed for the women. But now, not just on an experimental basis, but for all the official competitions, including the 2012 Olympic Games, there will be flexibility. It will be permitted to use shorts and a top, with or without sleeves, as an alternative to the bathing suit. In fact, the wording seems to suggest that one could, for instance, combine a bikini top with shorts.

This may now raise questions for beach handball: will we be ‘ahead’ of everyone else by continuing to insist on bikinis, or will we be ‘behind’ in the sense that we are (in a sport essentially managed by men!) forcing the women to wear something that they may not like to use? This is of course a matter of ethics and equal treatment, and that is the consideration that I personally see as the most relevant one. But then I am sure that other observers will argue more cynically that we must not overlook the aspects of PR and ability to attract spectators and sponsors. Indeed, some media comments already suggest, apropos the decision of beach volleyball, that “this sport, which in itself is boring, will lose its glamour and ability to gain attention, if the bikini uniforms are not part of the spectacle in the beach setting”.

It will be interesting to see if the decision in beach volleyball will cause a reaction in the IHF, and I would also be curious to know how current and potential beach handball players and spectators look at it! Would you want handball to follow the example of volleyball?

For a long time now, Russian men’s handball has been synonymous with Vladimir Maksimov, but after the ‘modest’ results in EURO 2012 the 66-year old decided that it was time to retire permanently. After a good career as a player, which included the gold medals in the 1976 Olympics, he was coaching the men’s national team during a very successful period. Indeed, one could say that the Russians were a dominating team in the 1990s, becoming both World Champions and European Champions, with the gold medals at the 2000 Olympics as a culmination.

But thereafter the Russian machine sputtered, despite bronze medals in 2004 and the insertion of several talented younger players. In fact, Maksimov already gave way briefly for other coaches twice, but he was almost immediately brought back again. In recent years, it was common to hear Maksimov get the blame for the decline, and there was whispering to the effect that he had ‘outlived himself’ as a coach at the top level. But I think it is also fair to say that many international critics were misled by the earlier successes and have not realized that handball is in fact not really a major sport in Russia, with unlimited resources and a steady supply of large numbers of players at the youth level.

If anything, Maksimov probably got too little credit for getting so much out of a difficult situation. He was heard lamenting that the promised support had not been forthcoming despite the many successes that he and his teams had brought to Russian sport. And he had a personal image of a ‘big grunting bear’ who was not very approachable, and this may also have brought him less appreciation than he deserved. In my experience, he was always very serious and respectful in dealing with people around him. It may have seemed he was tough on his players, but he was always sportsmanlike and never got into the habit of provoking or complaining in a conspicuous way. At the most, a resigned gesture or a wry smile could be seen, when he wanted to get agreement with his opinion of a decision from the referees.

Several former top players had been mentioned as candidates to replace Maksimov. One of the most familiar faces (or should I say wing spans) was that of Dmitri Torgovanov, the former world-class pivot who is now coaching St. Petersburg HC. Other rumors suggested that Alexander Rymanov or Nikolai Tsigarev might be the anointed one. But a few days ago it was announced that the Russian Handball Union had voted in favor of Oleg Kuleshov as a narrow winner over Rymanov. Apparently, as is the process in Russia, what is now missing is the formal endorsement by the Ministry of Sports.

The 37-year old Kuleshov had a strong career as a player, doing no less than 123 international matches for Russia. He was on the Olympic team in 1996 and 2004, but he missed out on being part of the gold medal squad in 2000. At the club level he spent many years playing for SC Magdeburg, including the season when they won the EHF Champions League. He has recently been a coach for HF Springe, a top team in the 3rd Bundesliga. He would be expected to bring in a new group of coaches and managers to work with him, creating a new leadership generation in charge of the Russian men’s team. Let us see of this will turn the recent decline around!

Last week, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the rules-making body in football announced a turnaround in its previous opinions on the matter and declared that it was supporting a change that would allow women to wear a head scarf (hijab) in football competitions. It is expected that the final approval by FIFA will be given in July, following a final check of health and safety aspects by FIFA’s medical advisers.

The matter had been pursued vigorously in recent time by Prince Ali of Jordan, who became FIFA Vice-President and a member of the FIFA Executive Committee through a surprising election result in the Asian Football Confederation a year ago. From the vantage point of handball, it could be observed that a number of Muslim countries previously had wanted to pursue the issue across a spectrum of different sports, and that there was considerable discomfort among the decision-makers in the individual sports, including football and handball. Accordingly, the matter was referred to ASOIF, the organization for summer Olympic sports, in the hope that a standardized approach might evolve.

While waiting for results, there were some informal ‘experimentation’ or exceptions, especially in the world of Asian football and handball. In the meantime, it had also become a practice in women’s handball that at least long sleeves and pants would be used in handball, something that the IHF also quietly begun to accept. And in 2010, without any public debate, there was suddenly wording introduced in the handball rule book to the effect that head scarves are allowed, in analogy with headbands, as long as they are made of soft, elastic material. (It may seem that elasticity makes sense for headbands, but it may not really be desirable for head scarves; here instead, the method of fastening may be more relevant).

Of course, the issue has tended to be much more of a political ‘hot potato’ rather than a technical rules issue in recent decades. Around the world, one finds a wide spectrum of habits and opinions: the wearing of hijabs in public is mandatory, or it is forbidden in certain settings or it is left up to each woman to decide. Similarly, it has been seen alternatively as an issue of women’s rights and opportunities to participate in sports, or an indication of suppression. The reasons for hesitation in the world of sports has been the notion that the wearing of a hijab is a religious manifestation, something which is generally forbidden in sports rules, but the success of Prince Ali seems based on the argument that it should be seen as a cultural expression and therefore permissible.

But what it does bring up in handball is a more mundane and practical matter, a shortcoming that I touched on not so long on ago when commenting on the ‘conflict’ regarding the desire on the part of AG Copenhagen to wear sleeveless shirt in the EHF Champions League. The matter was amicably resolved, but it gave me a chance to joke about the need for ‘uniform’ tattoos, in the absence of sleeves. The point is that, in comparison with other sports, handball is amazingly silent as to what actually constitutes a ‘uniform’. It seems that, by definition, there is nothing that should require a more clear and precise definition than what goes under the name ‘uniform’… But I cannot point any fingers, because I have been involved in IHF rules matters for several decades, and it never occurred to me or anyone else to see the need for a clearer definition of something that everyone seemed to understand!

The rule book does not even talk about shorts vs. long pants, and shirts are only mentioned indirectly in the sense of being the place where you put the player numbers. So no wonder that it was the EHF advertising regulations and not the playing rules that were at issue in the case of AG Copenhagen. And the rules point out that the teams must wear different colors, but it is in fact not quite clear what should carry those colors. And for instance, are bikinis from beach handball allowed in indoor handball? Are long socks or panty-hose OK and do the colors matter etc? Is there a basis for prohibiting a skirt or a kilt? At least it is spelled out that players must were sports shoes, so playing barefoot or in regular dress shoes is not acceptable.

The rules have a more specific focus on objects that are prohibited or must be covered. The concept of taping or covering involves, for instance, rings, earrings, body piercing. It is also explicitly stated that head protection and face masks are illegal, as are watches, bracelets or necklaces. But if one goes back to the question of head scarves, where the reality is that handball is generally ahead of football, perhaps it would be advisable to follow FIFA’s detailed determinations and/or have a special review in the IHF of what type/size of scarves should be accepted; and especially how they need to be attached (Velcro?) to avoid that they keep falling off, get tangled up, or risk having a ‘strangling effect’. One does not want to over-regulate, because controversies at a new level is the last thing one would want, but it is necessary to consider the safety of all the players and also to facilitate for the referees.

Finally, the focus on the general definition of ‘uniform’ seems to suggest that the IHF might be well advised to come up with some clarifications or a more precise text in the next rule book.

The real purpose of this article is to emphasize that it is possible to combine clear principles with a little bit of practical judgment and that, above all, there should be no room for prestige in the handling of important matters. Moreover, as I noted in a recent posting, there is considerable room for improvement in the communications functions of the IHF. What is then causing me to offer these comments? Well, it is an issue that somehow IHF has preferred to keep rather hidden, namely the principles and procedures for the seeding of the teams that qualify for the men’s and women’s handball tournaments.

 

The seeding may be of considerable importance in placing a team in a group that is easier or more difficult, in terms of gaining one of the four top places (out of six) that give a place in the quarter-finals. When the concept of pre-Olympic qualifying tournaments was introduced for 2008, there was some controversy about how the seeding of teams qualifying directly for Beijing and those taking the route through qualifying groups should have been handled.

Accordingly, the IHF decided to review the issue and they reached agreement through a decision in the Council and the Executive Committee in 2010! But they ‘forgot’ to announce the decision… So it only became a public issue in the last couple of weeks, following the EURO 2012, when the European champion Denmark found out about their situation with respect to seeding. They were not happy and they told IHF so. As a result, IHF was not just unhappy, but tried to combine a factual announcement with a response to Denmark in the IHF web site. The explanation was mostly unclear and incomplete, and there as an anger directed at Denmark that seemed improper for a public statement. So what was then the specific issue?

The IHF had decided that the “top four teams in the 2011 World Championship should be given priority“. This would involve France, Denmark, Spain and Sweden. But as only France was an automatic qualifier for London, the indirect way of prioritizing the other three teams was to say that the winners of the three qualifying groups where these teams would normally be placed as hosts would benefit from seeding as teams 2-4 for London. Then would come the runners-up from the three qualifying groups as seeds 5-7 (which would quite possibly be the teams placed 5-7 in 2011), with the host Great Britain inserted as No. 8 (the kind of special treatment that the hosts tend to get). And that would leave the four continental champions for seeds 9-12. Personally, I find this quite logical and sensible!

However, all the people involved in the IHF decision-making overlooked one possibility, namely that one of the seeds 2-4 (or 5-7) might in fact ALSO become continental champion. This was the case with Denmark. So, because the IHF did not have (and did not hasten to insert) a supplementary clause to cover this special situation), they simply placed Denmark as a number 9 seed, as the champions from the highest ranked continent. In other words, having explicitly stated that Denmark as silver medalist in 2011 should be given priority with ranking number 2, the IHF in fact punished Denmark for also having won the European Championship. Having said above that I could fully support the IHF’s basic principle, I am even more firm in saying that this kind of misguided application, totally lacking in common sense and fairness, simply should never be allowed.

In a special clause, Denmark should have been allowed to keep seed number 2, with all the other teams moving down one position. I cannot imagine that anyone would find this unfair or improper. But now instead we have a situation where Denmark is moved down seven positions, and all the teams that were behind Denmark in the 2011 World Championship and in the EURO 2012 will be ahead of Denmark if they advance from their qualifying group. This includes, for instance Serbia (beaten by Denmark in the final of EURO 2012 and 10th in 2011) and even more conspicuously Poland. The only reason Poland was given a slot in a qualifying group for London (after having finished 9th in EURO 2012 and 8th in 2011) was precisely that Denmark no longer needed their slot because they qualify directly as European champions.

So, while I do not know exactly how Denmark argued their case, I fully understand why they wanted to appeal their situation to the IHF. Of course, after the rather insulting statement from the IHF on its web page, I could have foreseen that there would now be far too much prestige involved, and that if the IHF seriously wanted to listen to the Danes, they would never have used such a tone in public. But DHF president Bertelsen nevertheless went to Basel to meet with Moustafa today. As Bertelsen explains it, Moustafa was sympathetic and told him that he would ask the IHF Competition Commission (which was/is meeting in Basel) to review the matter. This left Bertelsen rather optimistic, he told Danish media.

But Bertelsen did not even get more halfway home before he found that the final IHF decision was negative. And to make it even more absurd, supposedly the impression was given that the final word was that of the Competition Commission. Anyone who knows the inner workings of the IHF knows that a Commission does not really ‘decide’ anything, it recommends. The real decision is taken by the President possibly after consultation with the Executive Committee and/or the Council. In other words, if the President genuinely had wanted to support Denmark’s claim, he would have asked for the support of the Executive or Council. It would not happen that the Commission ‘overrules’ him. So when Bertelsen expressed satisfaction that the IHF President had at least listened to him, perhaps Bertelsen was diplomatic; more realistically, he might have had reason to be upset that the IHF President made him waste a trip to Basel… Because clearly there was no intention to change the initial decision!

IHF Announcement on seeding:  http://www.aipsmedia.com/index.php?page=news&cod=7390&tp=n (Note:  This announcement has been removed from the IHF Webpage)