Fair play is the winning style -- a good sign for the future

by Christer Ahl - President of the Playing Rules and Referees Commission

Among all the statistics from the World Championship in Tunisia, it was perhaps not observed by everyone that the gold medal winners, Spain, were also the winners of the Fair Play competition! This is worth noticing, because regrettably it has been more common to notice that teams using more ‘dirty’ and cynical tactics have been relatively more successful.

It was also interesting to read statements from the Spanish coaches and players that their triumph in the Fair Play competition was not a coincidence or surprise. They had decided, based on past experience, that they should make a special effort to improve on their ranking in previous Championships by emphasizing speed and finesse instead of tougher methods. We are glad that this positive attitude paid off!

Somewhat in contrast, there were complaints from some of the less experienced teams that they were ‘misunderstood’ by the referees. This is nothing new: the top teams from Africa, Asia and PanAmerica have often felt handicapped, despite good results in the Championships, because they have normally been at the bottom of the fair play statistics.

It would be wrong to think that these teams come with a bad attitude and more ‘dirty’ tactics. The key to the difference in punishments is rather in the relative lack of experience from world-class competitions. A very experienced player can react more calmly in a pressure situation and knows that a small push or a very quick holding will be sufficient to interfere with the actions of the opponent. Such fouls do not always draw the attention of the referees. By contrast, a less experienced player is more likely to act on emotions and will not have the same instinct to use ‘minimum impact’. Instead, such a player is more likely to commit a foul (grabbing or pulling a player, a hard push, hitting on the arm, or even using the legs illegally) that is so flagrant that it cannot be overlooked by the referees.

Coaches for less experiences teams already have a difficult task in getting their players ready for a Championship. Often they do a fantastic job in getting the most out the athletic and technical abilities of the players, in combination with innovative tactics. One would only wish that would also be able to get their players to acquire quickly the instinct of calmly using ‘the minimum impact’ in each critical encounter with an opponent…