For any person it may come to the unfortunate point where self-inflicted wounds in one’s professional life and grief due to tragedies in one’s personal life coincide in a macabre way.

Hassan Moustafa, IHF President, has for many years been in a state of denial regarding the numerous manifestations of his cynical and despotic regime at the IHF. Whether he is now able also to ignore and shake off the impact of having had the IHF Offices and his own private penthouse apartment raided by police two days ago, that remains to be seen. I will follow up on this topic later today or tomorrow.

But for some time now, Hassan Moustafa has had to focus on a personal tragedy in the form of a serious illness of his wife, Dr. Magda Fahmy Ezz, who has been in coma in a hospital in Cairo. I had the pleasure of meeting her, and she was very clearly a charming and highly accomplished woman, with major successes both in sports and in the arts, especially ballet. I will not forget the superb opening ceremony that she choreographed and produced for the Handball World Championship in Cairo in 1999. However, the message has now gone out that she passed away last night.

Yes, personal and professional tragedies can be intertwined in this way. But while the strong concerns about the impact of President Moustafa’s decisions and actions in the IHF will continue to be severely pursued by me and others, it is appropriate at this time to step back and convey condolences to Hassan Moustafa and his daughter (whom I have also met) in their moment of personal grief.

Will Annapolis ever compete for this trophy?

This weekend several hundred Army cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY will travel to the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, CO for the annual Army – Air Force football game.  American Football, however, is not the only sport that will be contested this weekend as the Army and Air Force will also battle it out for Service Academy Team Handball bragging rights.

And it may seem like hyperbole, but this is also the longest and most storied Team Handball rivalry in USA collegiate and arguably club history as well.  For at least 25 years (I know, I was there in 1986) and surely longer the two schools have been playing each other on a regular basis.  They’ve also been the two most consistently successful collegiate programs producing several Olympian and National Team players.  And while I will begrudgingly admit the rivalry has largely been one sided in favor of Army, I think it’s safe to say that both sides get fired up for the match against their fellow service academy.

But, now it’s time to get around to the title of this commentary:  Why is this rivalry just an Army – Air Force affair.  Where is the Naval Academy Team Handball Club?  For the record, this is not a new question.  I first asked the question a quarter century ago.  While living in DC a decade ago I made some phone calls to Annapolis, but meant resistance from the intramural leadership there.  Then out of the blue a couple of years later I got an email from someone at the Naval Academy looking for some advice on where to buy some handballs.  Yes, believe it or not they were starting an intramural program.

At that point I figured it was only a matter of time before a bunch of like minded midshipmen would start a club.  After all, that’s how I got introduced to the sport.  If you’ve got 500 or so Midshipmen taking up the game in intramurals there’s got to be at least 10 or so who fall in love with the game.  And when those 10 guys find out that AF and Army duke it out every year there going to want a piece of the action.  And for a year or two in the early 2000’s Navy did have a new club, but for whatever reason the club never got traction and faded away.

In a sense, the failure for a quality club to get started at Annapolis is a perfect example of the struggles this sport faces in the U.S.  In theory, this should be the easiest college in the country to start a club.  Here’s why:

Existing model/rivalries: There are differences between the 3 service academies, but there are probably not three institutions of higher learning with more in common in terms of structure and organization.  The rivalry goes without saying.

An existing intramural program:  It’s probably not an exaggeration to state that there are probably more people playing Team Handball at Annapolis than just about anywhere else in the country (excepting, of course, Army and Air Force).  Contrast that to the challenge of starting a club program where you have to first explain the sport to people.

A perfect location:  There’s one other college besides AF and Army with a pretty well established collegiate program:  North Carolina.  And Annapolis just happens to be about halfway between UNC and Army.  Navy could easily drive to matches between the two existing major programs on the East Coast.  Additionally, there is a relatively new club, the DC Diplomats only 40 minutes away.  Clubs in Seattle, Minneapolis, Phoenix and other locales can only dream of such convenience

Folks willing to help:  It goes without saying that Army and Air Force would bend over backwards to help start a program at Annapolis.  In fact, efforts have been made in the past.  The DC Diplomats would also love to have a nearby foe.  The USA Federation would also surely step in, simply based on the wealth of national team athletes that Army and Air Force have provided.

The wonders of Google and a challenge

Finally, the ulterior motive behind this posting, in particular the title, is that it’s only a matter of time before some Midshipmen looks into Naval Academy Team Handball and stumbles upon this webpage.  (There’s a good chance:  type in Bernd Wulffen into Google and see what comes up.)  And should that happen, Midshipmen X, please drop me a line at john.ryan@teamhandballnews.com. We’ll help you get your team started so that one day Navy makes it a 3 way battle.

Naval Academy summary of NCAA, club and intramural sports: http://www.usna.edu/admissions/athletics.htm

THN (3 May 2011): Commentary: USA Team Handball National Teams: Are there too many guys with short haircuts and accents? (Part 1: Military Athletes): https://teamhandballnews.com/2011/05/commentary-usa-team-handball-national-teams-are-there-too-many-guys-with-short-haircuts-and-accents-part-1-military-athletes/

Karoline Borg's performance at the PANAM Games was one of the bright spots for Team USA

The USA Women’s and Men’s National Teams had a disappointing Pan American Game tournament.  The women played hard but were overmatched and struggled to be competitive at times on their way to a winless 8th place finish.  The men were more competitive, but high hopes of reaching the semifinals were squashed early and the team only managed one victory enroute to a 7th place finish.

John Ryan and Christer Ahl discuss the results of the PANAM Games, the current state of the USA National Teams and prospects for the near term future and 2016.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the ‘Play the Game’ conference at the German Sports University in Cologne. This organization is Danish-based and has gained a reputation over the past dozen years as the main forum for the fight against corruption and the debate of other critical issues, both through its conferences and its ongoing work. You can find out more about both the organization and the recent conference through their web site www.playthegame.org Over the next few weeks, I will be providing brief reports on a whole range on different topics from the conference.

A general problem in the fight against corruption is the regrettable fact that such issues are given far too little exposure in the media, inadequate attention by stakeholders such as sponsors, and very limited reporting by ‘whistleblowers’. This makes the job of ‘cleaning up’ much more difficult, something that was the topic of my interventions at the Conference.

In the world of sports today, the main focus is on the obvious state of corruption in FIFA, the international football federations. Football has more exposure and FIFA deals with much larger amounts of money than other sports. Accordingly its wrongdoings set a very negative example for all other sports.

Doping continues to be a topic of major controversy. It is generally felt that those who want to use science for illegal purposes are ahead of the detection efforts, something that causes a demand for stricter policies and procedures. At the same, there are increasing concerns about the rights of the athletes.

Gender issues have typically tended to involve accusations about inequities in the treatment of female athletes and a delay in getting their events recognized for the Olympics etc. But increasingly it has become necessary to deal with transgender issues, including the balance between fairness vis-à-vis other athletes and the rights to privacy and to participate in some way.

The role of sports in the Middle East has often focused on the participation of women. But during the political events in several countries this year, it has become evident that the sports fans have often used their strong organization and ‘anti-authoritarian tendencies’ to play a vital role.

The autonomy of the sports movement has been pushed very strongly by the IOC in recent years, to the point of suspending countries where governments have interfered in the management of sports. However, it is increasingly becoming clear that it is unrealistic and undesirable to force the governments to stay out in many instance where sports federation desperately need their support financially or in terms of managerial or organizational know-how.

Both the Olympic Games and the football world championships have created a very questionable and costly legacy in recent decades, through the construction of numerous large stadiums that become ‘white elephants’ and remain unused when the big event is over. This tends to be a huge waste of public money, often in countries that can ill afford it.

Match fixing, either in connection with illegal betting operations or simply in the traditional form of ‘arrangements’ between teams/athletes or with referees, has become the new cause for serious concerns in many sports. The amount of money involved can be huge, so the temptations are large, and the systems for monitoring and discovery are finding it difficult to keep up.

Other topics that may show up in some of my future articles include the feeble role of sponsors in the fight against corruption, the challenges facing Brazil as a host of both the football world championship in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016, the clear tendencies to an increase in violence in sports (especially on the part of spectators). I also plan to explain the circumstances surrounding the ‘Cologne Consensus’, a document that was the final product of the conference after consultations with the participants. It lays out possible ways in which the IOC could use its experience and leadership position to play a coordinating role in the overall fight against corruption in sports.

It is with great sadness that we today receive the report that Jan Boye passed away last night. Of course, the real shock came about two weeks ago in the form of the news that Jan had suffered a massive stroke, and that there was virtually no hope for a recovery. Jan’s passing came at the age of 49, at the height of multi-faceted career. We send our deepest sympathy to Jan’s family and to everyone in Danish handball.

Jan Boye was elected as President for the Danish Handball Federation just three months ago. This seemed like an excellent decision at a moment when the otherwise formidable Danish ‘handball machinery’ had suffered some setbacks at the managerial and institutional level. Jan was an experienced politician, who had served several years as mayor of Odense, Denmark’s third largest city and, among other things, famous for being the home town of Hans Christian Andersen. Jan had an energy and enthusiasm that seemed to inspire people and to get them to pull in the same direction.

But Jan was not just a career politician; he had his roots in handball. The reason for my feeling compelled to write about Jan’s passing is that I had the privilege to get to know him personally in his capacity as a top level international referee (where his partner was Bjarne Munk Jensen, currently member of the IHF Rules and Referees Commission). They performed successfully in both Olympic Games and World Championships, following in the footsteps of many great Danish referees. What I especially remember about Jan was his unflappable presence on the court and, above all, his disarming smile. Indeed, he really personified the famous ‘Danish smile’… May he rest in peace!

As John Ryan briefly mentioned a few days ago, it appears that important changes are tentatively underway regarding the competition system for PanAmerican championships. While the proposals need to be formally ratified during an Extraordinary PATHF Congress that is planned to be held in December during the Women’s World Championship in Brazil, it seems that the changes have gained sufficient momentum so that one could expect them to be approved. The person who ‘spilled the beans’ was PATHF Vice-President Mario Moccia, whose interview was captured by Ruben Gomez on his web site Mundohandball.com

Some years ago, a structure was introduced under which there would be an Elite Division and a ‘Division 1’, with promotions and relegations between the two levels on the basis of the rankings in these events. The Elite Division has had eight participating countries under this format. While this system on paper has a fair and professional look, it has caused major problems for those countries whose teams are on the borderline between the two levels or who rarely make it out of the Division 1 level. The main issue is that these countries have major difficulties in encountering government support or sponsors for the often expensive participation in these events.

Very few governments find it very interesting to support participation at what is really a secondary level, despite the label ‘Division 1’. Moreover, if the team does quality for promotion to the higher level, it entails a doubling of the expenses. And the interest among spectators, TV broadcasters and sponsors for a secondary level event is obviously also very limited, so there is not much of a PR value involved in hosting or participating in such an event.

Accordingly, the tentative proposal is to abolish the Division 1 and instead increase (from 8 to 12) the number of participants in THE PanAmerican Championship. Of course, the PanAmerican continent has a much larger number of countries with handball federations, so the issue of how the 12 participants will be selected clearly may become a matter of debate. The PATHF may find some formula for the first event in each category (senior, junior, youth for both men and women), on the basis of recent results. For future years, the lowest ranked teams may be replaced by the winners of some form of less costly regional qualifying. But these important details remain to be worked out.

It seems that there will be some difficulties in finding organizers for the expanded events, as few of the national federations in PanAmerica have the infrastructure, resources and experienced needed to host such large events. It is likely that the bulk of the events may have to be held in either Argentina or Brazil, something that would not be greeted with enthusiasm by the participants from the Northern or Central parts of the continent.

At least it seems understood that there is a basis for determining the host of the 2012 Men’s Championship. This event serves as the qualifying event for the 2013 World Championship, and it would make a great difference in the ranking and seeding for 2013 if a team wins or ‘only’ comes in second in the 2012 PATHF Championship. Both Argentina and Brazil would like to have that edge, which would be easier to obtain as a host. So it now seems agreed that the winner of tomorrow’s final Argentina-Brazil will win not just the Olympic tickets but also the right to host in 2012.