The next article is part of the material that the IHF is preparing and that will be distributed among the National Federation in the near future with the aim to assist referees and coaches during the next season
The following topics cause a special concern since it was observed the occurrence of a lot of deviations, during some of the World and Continental Championships (celebrated in 2003) in terms of the desired level of fair play vs. dirty play and decent conduct vs. cynical conduct (to win at any cost)
The main intention is to make a call to all referees so that they can consistently work with these themes.
1. Frontal defensive action not always so innocent: we have typically been preaching that ‘red card’ situations and other fouls warranting punishment tend to occur in one-on-one situations where the defenders is forced to take action from behind (push in the back on a jumper) or from the side (tear down the arm of the throwing player); by contrast, the ‘correct’ frontal defensive position is normally OK; but now we have seen more and more that defenders commit bad fouls facing the attacker, partly to make it look more innocent so that they will get away with it; this involves going for the face/head/neck with fist or fingers first, pretending to go for the ball and the shooting arm in a blocking motion while in fact delivering ‘karate chops’ against the shooting or arm or the other arm; leading with the elbow, perhaps against the stomach; even grabbing the genitals!
2. Fast breaks: referees have been too inconsistent in one-one-one pursuits during the fast breaks; sometimes bad pushes in the back or tripping/stepping on heels have been allowed without punishment; by contrast, defenders who genuinely try to catch, running/jostling shoulder to shoulder and trying to get a hand in to deflect the dribbled ball, have been punished; the referees must position themselves so that they can observe better, typically from the side, how the contact is actually made;
3. ‘Force of foul’ vs. impact: the referees tend to see and react correctly to fouls involving heavy body contact, i.e, big push, major blow/hit, wrestling move; but when it comes to deciding about ‘red card’ it is not necessarily the force used that decides how dangerous the foul is and therefore how severely it should be punished; players are cynically training to achieve the biggest possible impact/damage with the smallest possible action/contact; a light touch is all that it takes to crate injury risk if the touch comes in the very moment when the player is helpless/vulnerable because he is jumping/running and also unaware of the upcoming foul; the players must refrain from this and the referees must be much more alert to it and judge on the basis of the effect, not the force of the contact;
4. Wing situations: here we have seen new ‘tricks’ from the players and accordingly more mistakes from the referees; a) watch for dangerous fouls at the moment when the attacker is jumping in over the goal-area; a slight touch on shoulder, elbow , knee or foot may have terrible effects; b) the defenders squeeze/displace an attacker who is jumping in outside the defender, so that the attacker will lose balance and/or be forced out into a worsened angle; this is done without arms and without hip movement (tackle) so that it will be as invisible as possible; it may not warrant personal punishment, but the attacker should often have a 7-meter; c) many attackers are using the referee instinct that it is typically the defender who is fouling; so the attacker is the one seeking the contact, creating the collision when going around the defender on the wing; they are hoping to draw at least a 7-meter, even if perhaps they did not even have the intention to try to shoot;
5. Circle runner: the referees do not always watch carefully enough until the ball comes, but then it is too late because a sneaky player who anticipated the situation has already done the damage: a) the defender ‘quietly’ holds the body or shirt of the attacker (or stands on the foot) until just before the ball comes; at that point the defender lets go and the attacker typically loses balance; or conversely, the culprit is the circle-runner, who does the holding, spins into or pushes off from the defender, both to get some momentum and to get the defender out of position;
6. inside the goal area: instead of causing an easy/obvious 7-meter by confronting an attacker by standing a good step inside the goal-area line, the defender uses our tricks: standing inside the line and causing the shooter to adjust his angle/jump accordingly, then moving out outside the line at the moment of the collision when the referee is looking; or shadowing the attacker from the side, running into the goal area parallel to the attacker jumping in; the refs tend to watch for possible body contact and do not see the defenders illegal position which impacts the attacker’s choices and concentration;
7. defense moving out to ‘sabotage’: in a 6-0 defense it is typical that defenders move out against the player in front of them with the ball and then pull back again; but some teams have made it systematic that every player on offense who has the ball at 10-12 meter gets the nearest defender coming out to tie-him up briefly; nothing rough or long-lasting, very quick and just enough to delay the next pass or run, so as to throw the whole pattern off and force the attackers to start from scratch again; obviously this drives the attackers crazy; they cannot get anything going and the defenders never get punished; each individual fouls is seen as minor/routine and the referee think ‘advantage’ and let the play continue; the referees must appreciate the impact and go after the cumulative effect with progressive punishments to discourage this kind of tactics; (watch the FRA men’s team…)
8. hidden offensive foul / faked defensive foul: intentional unsportsmanlike behavior intended to provoke the opponents and get them to react and draw a punishment; attackers deliberately using dirty tricks completely away from the ball (not to affect/prevent the next pass or gain anything but simply to irritate/provoke), often undetected because it happens where the refs have no reason to watch; similarly, at the slightest contact (or possibly a minor foul) creating a great spectacle, pretending to be badly hit/hurt; falling to the floor and/or not getting up; stirring things up with the player who is being innocently accused;
9. legs/feet against low pass: defenders driving the attackers crazy by using their legs/feet to stop all low passes, especially interrupting passes out to the wing player;
10. punishments in the early stages in the game: one of the most fundamental points; has two parts:
a) the referees sometimes act to much like ‘robots’ taking their sweet time in giving out the three yellow cards to each team before the start throwing players out; the teams systematically take advantage; they don’t care about getting a yellow card; they just want to con the refs to hold off as long as possible with the first 2-minute penalty; the refs must be much more capable of sensing whether the cards are having any effect or whether the game is ‘too hot; they must adapt and ‘get rid of’ the cards faster whenever this seems necessary;
b) teams/players who are ruthless enough to be intent on taking out a key opponent will not wait until late in the game; the will do it early, partly because they want to be rid of the difficult opponent as quickly as possible AND because the have a better chance of getting away with it; the refs are in the first few minutes into their ‘yellow card rhythm’ and may not react when the next foul is such a bad one that a red card or at least a direct 2 min is warranted; they may just give yet another yellow card; this of course is likely to get the game of to a disastrous start and the refs may have lost any chance of getting it under control; first we want the teams to back of from this cynicism and second we want the refs to react right when such a bad thing happens in the early going;