15C.2 Referees

Comments about this discussion:

Started 12 Apr 12:02

Borrowing from Freestyle rules on Judegs

"6C.4.1 Selecting Judges A person should not judge an event if he or she is: • A parent, child or sibling of a rider competing in the event. • An individual or team coach, manager, trainer, colleague who is member of the same club specied in the registration form, colleague's family etc. of a rider competing in the event. • A sponsor, part of a sponsoring organization or connected to an organization sponsoring any riders in the group to be judged. • A family member of another judge on the judging panel. If the judging pool is too limited by the above criteria, restrictions can be eliminated starting from the bottom of the list and working upward as necessary only until enough judges are available."

I think we should extend section 15C.2 to require independent referees for all elimination/placement games (refs should not be competitors in the same tournament). For pool games we should require at least 2 floor refs from different teams and if the teams are from diverse regions the refs should either be independent, from neutral regions, or mixed from the represented regions.

We should also require referee training for floor refs.

Comment 15 Apr 12:13

Such rules make sense but are highly complicated to enforce in practice.

In France, the only solution would be to pay external on-foot basketball referees (and we do sometimes). Indeed, there are relatively few people able to referee a unibasketball game, and all of them are competitors (or coaches). For finals, it is even harder because just a handful of players are good enough to referee such high-speed and high-stake games, and these players are often playing in the best teams.

My point is that you are perfectly right than the refereeing is often an issue in unibasketball (conflict of interest, US/Europe different understanding of the rules/contacts, referees not knowing or enforcing the rules well enough, etc.), but it is very hard to find a good and practical solution.

Comment 15 Apr 13:29

I would like to enforce this at Unicon (within a single country there can still be bias but it is less of an issue). I think hiring on-foot coaches should be an expected part of hosting a Unicon.

Comment 15 Apr 13:42

I agree to both sentences (although I guess you meant "referees" rather than "coaches" in the second one).

Comment 15 Apr 14:21

yes

Comment 06 May 01:26

I propose we add a section similar to 2D.9 with Unicon specific language here is my proposed change for 15C.2

15C.2 Game Officials

As with Rule Eight of the FIBA Rulebook, game officials shall consist of two or three referees and at least two table officials. Referees shall have all of the responsibilities and powers described in Articles 45, 46, and 47 except for articles covering the referees uniforms. At Unicon, for all playoff games in the A tournament, experienced referees who are not playing in the A tournament and not associated with any teams in the A tournament should be used. For all other games if the referees are players in the same tournament, the referees should be from at least two different teams.

The table officials shall consist of at least one scorer and at least one timer.

Comment 06 May 15:05

I like your proposition.

In practice, to have a more predictable schedule, clock is not stopped at each violation or fault in many games. In those, the table officials are thus rather the scorer and the assistant scorer. Also, I would not start a new paragraph for such a small precision.

Besides, we should specify who is handling the protests (it is currently more or less the case).

Overall, this would give the following text.

15C.2 Game Officials

As with Rule Eight of the FIBA Rulebook, game officials shall consist of two or three referees and at least two table officials (at least the scorer and a timer/assistant scorer). Referees shall have all of the responsibilities and powers described in Articles 45, 46, and 47 except for articles covering the referees uniforms. At Unicon, for all playoff games in the A tournament, experienced referees who are not playing in the A tournament and not associated with any teams in the A tournament should be used. For all other games if the referees are players in the same tournament, the referees should be from at least two different teams. The referees are responsible for resolving protests concerning the game.

Comment 06 May 16:21

I'm fine with your suggestions, I didn't include the last sentence because it is part of Fiba rules but it makes sense to add it here. Even if the timer only has to start the inital clock for a game without any stopped clock it still makes sense to call them the timer.

Comment 09 May 13:02

There's a rule that says referees who are participating in the same event should be from different teams, but it does not say that they should be from different countries as well, which I think is important. We still have referee bias if we have them from 2 teams but both teams are french, or Belgium. Can we add that rule?

Comment 09 May 13:06

Hi David, thank you for your thoughts about this. It is difficult to solve.

it is also important after many years of issues with A Basketball referees that the committee requests budget money to pay for certified high school foot referees in all playoff games, AND in any games just before the playoffs between 2 teams who will both be in the playoffs, or involving whether a team will make the playoffs or not.
The competitor cost is high enough now and the issues you are right about. I have seem these same issues happening for 15 years (since at least 2009 in New Zealand). Is it possible to finally request more $ to solve the referee bias issue? Some teams are not happy to participate unless they hear that there is budget $ to pay for refs for all IMPORTANT games, instead of just the semi-finals and championship game.

Comment 10 May 15:10

Both Joshua use the expression "playoff games", but I am not sure what they are. What do you mean?

Comment 10 May 16:14

"Playoffs" are: final, semi-final, quarter-final games. "playoff" games happen after the regular season or end of the tournament and they determine who might become champion. All playoff games should have pro referees that we pay for. In the last 15 years unicon pays for referees only in the final/championship game. We need to pay for refs for ALL playoff games.

Then there are games BEFORE "playoff" games that may decide what seed or ranking each team will have in the playoffs (#1 plays #4, then #2 plays vs #3). Or decide whether a team advances to the playoffs.

for example, If woom plays Animafond BEFORE the playoffs and Animafond beats Woom, maybe that means Animafond gets jnto the playoffs - but if they lose, maybe they don't get to be in playoffs. That's an important game and should not be refereed by other players in the tournament. These games should have pro referees that we pay for.

if there are 4 teams in the playoffs, you need to pay for 3 playoff fames worth of referees: 3 x 2 referees ($90/100 per game) = $300. Budgeting $500 for referees should be our request. That would cover playoffs and 2-3 important games before playoffs.

Comment 28 May 04:32

I like the idea of pushing for referees, personally, I think it would make sense to enforce it as :

for the A tournament, during the "qualification phase" 1 "official" paid referee per match + 2 players from various team (and countries) then in the "play-off" part of the tournament, 2 referee per match.

That way, the referee can "familiarize" themself with how the game his played during the first part of the tournament and then be ready for the more "complicated" play-off games.

Comment 28 May 08:32

Although I'd love for "official" pro refs to be used for every A tournament game at Unicon, I think we have to be realistic with hosts (budget constraints, organisational constraints ; we do not want to put too much pressure on hosts). We may advise it for the first prelims, and have it mandatory only for playoffs games. Just my 2 cents.

Comment 09 Jun 11:14

It seems to me (but I may be wrong) that many other events require much more money than basketball, typically track races but also road and muni events because of the timing equipment and the result screens. Am I right?

Also, what is the situation in Hockey? Is there the same problem of having referees which are players?

Comment 09 Jun 15:32

David, agreed. Other events required larger budgets. Josh Motenko's proposal -

'you need to pay for 3 playoff fames worth of referees: 3 x 2 referees ($90/100 per game) = $300. Budgeting $500 for referees should be our request'

-is not exorbitant or excessive but instead reasonable and needed.

Comment 10 Jun 01:36

> Also, what is the situation in Hockey? Is there the same problem of having referees which are players?

In hockey, it is absolutely normal and completely unproblematic for games to be judged by other players. I don't know that there have ever been any considerations to handle this differently. The same principle has always been applied in the major national leagues and works without any problems there.

> It seems to me (but I may be wrong) that many other events require much more money than basketball

That may be true (although the gym rental is sometimes a cost factor that should not be neglected and is not required for Muni, for example), but the Unicon organizers usually still have the problem that they have a tight budget and have to try to save up every euro wherever possible.

Comment 02 Jul 03:27

We need to converge on that matter. What do you think about this?

15C.2 Game Officials

At Unicon, for all playoff games in the A tournament, experienced referees who are not playing in the A tournament and not associated with any teams in the A tournament should be used. These would typically be certified on-foot basketball referees paid via the Unicon budget. One such referee per game should also be planned for other important games preceding the playoffs (this would depend on the tournament format), allowing them to get used to the unibasketball particularities before the playoffs. When referees are players in the same tournament, the referees should be from at least two different teams, and preferably from two different regions.

Comment 02 Jul 03:49

This looks good to me

Comment 07 Jul 17:30

David, I propose a slight edit toward more certain terms. Regarding the final sentence -

'When referees are players in the same tournament, the referees should be from at least two different teams, and preferably from two different regions'

This should be changed to-

'When referees are players in the same tournament, the referees must be from at least two different teams, and must be from two different regions'

So as to eliminate any confusion in interpretation.

Comment 09 Jul 10:12

Kyle, I'm OK with the stronger version concerning "two different teams", but I don't think it's realistic concerning "two different regions", at least if we mean "two different regions of the world" (which is what I have in mind).

Imagine the situation at Unicon20. Do you think your team (the only non-French one) would have been able to provide a referee to every qualification game? Also, what would be the solution at all the times when the only non-French team is playing? I think that having two referees from two different regions cannot be mandatory, but we should nevertheless tend toward that.

Also, my feeling is that the issues we repeatedly have at each Unicon do not come from partial referees who would be trying to favor the teams from their region, but rather from different perceptions of the rules in the different regions, especially about contacts. These different perceptions sometimes come from imprecise rules and that's why our committee is trying to improve the Basketball section of the IUF rules.

As a summary, I'm against a definitive formulation like "must be from two different regions", but I would be happy with a stronger formulation than "preferably from two different regions". Especially as a non-native speaker, I'm open to better suggestions.

Comment 11 Jul 08:38

The bias I have seen in 2009, 2016, and 2024 unicons by referees from the same region makes me not want to return to unicon again unless the referees are from different regions. This is both bias towards certain teams, bias against certain teams, and perception of rules related to game management, handling crowds, giving warnings before technical fouls, and handling pressure of important games by referees from the same team and/or same region of the world.

It is very important to solve this referee bias problem by having diversity in the referees. How do we have diversity? We make sure they are not from the same team AND we make sure they are from different regions of the world, and hopefully speak different languages.

It is normal for this to be mandatory in other tournaments around the world. For all future Unicons this should be mandatory.

Comment 11 Jul 08:45

Hey Joshua,

I totally understand your point, but, how do you propose to have that happen in practical? I think we have to stay realistic in what's possible. If there is only one team from a region, and all others from another one (wich is quite usual...), then how do you propose to have a refereee from two different region when the team that's the only one from its region plays?

Other sports have different realities than unicycling.

Comment 11 Jul 11:06

I totally understand your perspective.

I'm a member of a team where there are no others from our region when we play at Unicon.

We supply referees more than other teams (I often volunteer to ref, as does Josh Ehrlich). We expect that we will be asked to referee a lot to help make sure there is less bias. it's okay for the committee/director to communicate this expectation.

When we play our games, we obviously would not be able to referee and would understand if the two referees would be from different teams, but the same region.

i agree with Kyle, and I think it's best to write in the rules that it is mandatory, and then if a situation occurs where that cannot happen, it is understood why.

Comment 13 Jul 01:18

I think a good compromise is to include the list of desired attributes and then include that if the pool of referees is to limited then the directors can relax restrictions in a specified order (Same as freestyle). I think as we are growing the sport and increasing the level of skills of the top players we should also try and focus on improving the quality and expectations for the referees.

Comment 13 Jul 16:28

In practice, I think the quality of a referee barely depends on whether the person is close (family or club) to the players, and much more on their technical referee skills. But we can indeed try to list and discuss ideal expectations and the order in which we should relax them. The Joshuas, what do you propose exactly (we need actual text now)?

Comment 13 Jul 16:51

15C.2 Game Officials

Referees should be selected for the game based on the following criteria

Referees should not be teammates or members of the clubs of either team (even of members not playing in the tournament)
Referees should not only include players/participants from one team within the same tournament
When the tournament consists of teams from more than one region, referees should not only include players/participants from one region
Referees should not include players in the same tournament

If the referee pool is insufficient the directors may relax these restrictions starting at the bottom of the list and working upward. The directors may choose to limit the pool based on technical referee skills.

Comment 14 Jul 05:22

This looks very good to me. It both sets the goal and requirements, and accepts the reality of the sport.

Comment 14 Jul 08:44

This looks great to me. Thank you so much for putting us through the finish line, Josh!

thank you, committee!

Comment 14 Jul 09:33

Excellent suggestion, thank you Joshua!

I have just some little comments:

I would say the word "of" should be removed in "(even of members not playing in the tournament)".
In items 2 and 3, I find it difficult to parse "should not only include" (because "not only" has its own meaning), and I would prefer "should not include only", if it is proper English and has the intended meaning.

Comment 14 Jul 11:19

both edits are good

15C.2 Game Officials

Referees should be selected for the game based on the following criteria

Referees should not be teammates or members of the clubs of either team (even members not playing in the tournament)
Referees should not include only players/participants from one team within the same tournament
When the tournament consists of teams from more than one region, referees should not include only players/participants from one region
Referees should not include players in the same tournament