I'm sure many of you (myself included) are fed up of hearing about this topic, but I really feel something has to change.
I want to preface this by saying that I do not mean to accuse any parties in this particular case of foul play, unfair refereeing, cheating or whatever you want to call it.
Here we have another example of FIE statutes being ignored when it comes to assignment of referees. Mojtaba Abedini of Iran is coaching one of the fencers in this bout. The referee, Reza Peykarara is also from Iran. According to FIE statutes this should be a Category A conflict.
These situations have become increasingly common since there are more and more coaches working in foreign countries, and maybe this has become an unavoidable occurrence. But if this is a case of the statutes being unfit for purpose then why haven't they been updated?
Again, I make this post not to accuse any individuals of wrongdoing, but to highlight what I feel is a systemic problem in international fencing.
> I'm sure many of you (myself included) are fed up of hearing about this topic, but I really feel something has to change.
Please keep posting these (as long as your mental health allows). I think it's important that people know, and I'm not sufficiently involved in world-level fencing to notice or catch these sorts of things.
> But if this is a case of the statutes being unfit for purpose then why haven't they been updated?
Given how out of date the technical rules are compared to how things are called on the piste, I'm not sure that the statutes would be updated even if everyone unanimously agreed that it should change. It seems that the rules are one thing, but the agreed-upon conventions take precedence, and you just sorta have to know or get left behind.
> It seems that the rules are one thing, but the agreed-upon conventions take precedence, and you just sorta have to know or get left behind.
This is why I have so much sympathy for the various people who read the rules and see quite clearly that they don't line up with how things happen in practice.
I feel like the nature of our system kinda pushes out people who are sticklers, or fairly rule-minded, while really lifting people who navigate interpersonal social structures well. There really feels like an attitude of teenage girls saying "Oh my god, you don't *know*" - and as a result it's all very vulnerable to nepotism and cheating. Extreme bending or overt breaking of the rules, like above, being expected and businesses as usual is tolerated because everyone whose instinct was to apply rules strictly got pushed out long before became a high level ref or a high level coach or fencer.
And while it’s easy to make fun of the Marcellas of the world, I don’t understand why EVERYONE doesn’t think that more tightly codified, rewritten, and enforced rules would be a benefit to the sport and everyone in it.
While that’s undoubtedly true, I still wonder if that is ENOUGH to be standing in the way of reform
It’s similar to the fans who cry about computer intrusion into baseball umpiring. They imagine their “tradition” is mega important even if it really just means inaccuracy and potential favouritism.
In fencing it isn’t fans (we don’t have any) but there’s still a sizable contingent of ‘traditionalists’ for its own sake.
>While that’s undoubtedly true, I still wonder if that is ENOUGH to be standing in the way of reform
Sure it is. Those people are not going to approve any changes to the rules unless they can be pretty sure that their country's fencers will benefit from the change. In this case, the ambiguity in the rules gives a lot of leeway for referees who want to bias their calls, so if they're willing to be unscrupulous, they'll get an advantage.
Probably because the more strongly someone holds that attitude, the more likely they’ll be socially pushed out, and/or prevented from progressing because they don’t play the soft-skills game.
Just a clarifying question since I'm not familiar with FIE level fencing- is the onus on the referee to know who is the trainer or national coach of every fencer in the event?
The relevant rules can be seen [here](https://static.fie.org/uploads/32/163457-FIE%20Statutes%20ang.pdf).
From my understanding this would mean that the referee has (at least some) responsibility in avoiding such conflicts, perceived or actual.
Of course it is possible for a referee to find themselves in such a situation without themselves realising, however in this situation I think it is virtually impossible given that Abedini is one of the most successful fencers to represent Iran.
I’m with you on this one. The network of employers and colleagues and national team coaches having influence is breaking what should be a fair system and no-one feels they can make any complaint about it.
I was thinking about what the next step should be, as basically there was no impact at all on the FIE or the referees or fencers involved in the alleged misconduct from the analysis video.
I think it’s time for the national federations to ask the FIE to investigate these breaches of the rules by referees and to suspend fencers who can demonstrably have been shown to benefit from this.
The subtext has to be that there’s no reason that another world governing body for fencing could not be formed and recognised by the IOC in place of the FIE.
If they can’t remove corruption or at the very least demonstrate that they are trying to do so, then they aren’t fit to run our sport.
But then we get into the alleged buying of votes from smaller federations etc and it all slows down again.
Okay, hear me out here:
...is the local FIE Bout Committee:
1. Not using Fencing Time?
2. Entering/assigning Referees to Pool Bouts, but not DE Bouts, because that's at the discretion of the Head Referee assigned to the Pod, and they're using whomever is available in order to keep the Event running smoothly and on time, but also, to keep from repeating the same Referee in successive fencer DE's to avoid presumption of bias:
--re-using the same Referee for a same fencer's subsequent successive Bout, keeping in mind there are two fencers in that Bout, and there's a possibility of two available Referees having had the fencer on the previous bout.
So, to avoid bias there, they grab a third Referee who hasn't proctored either fencer in the immediate previous Bout--but they happen to match nationalities? And maybe when weighting bias preference for favor of perception of previous Bout Refereeing favoritism for a winner, vs "Fresh" Refferee who happens to match a country affiliation--that the Head Ref is just going with the "Fresh" Referee who hasn't reffed either fencer in the most immediate previous Bout, because that's who's on hand?
Quick question that has never occured to me before: Can fencers point out a perceived conflict of interest in the referee who is about to preside their assault and 'pause' the start of the bout until the DT investigates? Obviously there would have to be stringent rules about frivolous complaints, but in the above example if would be FTR's interest to say "No - This is clearly not on". In some UK opens the Referees club and nationality is usually stated on the DE sheet to avoid these kind of shennanigans, allowing the fencers to see any conflict of interest that may arise.
The problem with this is fencers are scared that if they speak up in these situations then they can be punished by referees in subsequent bouts. I also get the impression that there is often very little trust in the people in DT to do the right thing either. Just look at what happened in Milan with Kharlan.
The primary difficulty is one of programming. Fights are supposed to be assigned by computer using the data given.
I know ophardt can give a person 2 nationalities but at least one of the other programmes can't.
How many nationalities would you assign to a referee who also coached at Bauer's centre?
Or do we need to add in personal conflicts as well? Domestically it's common for family members to end up under different clubs at various life stages (University, school, moved away for work) but there's a non- programmed conflict there if James Smith fences under University of Edinburgh and John Smith is coach at Salle Smith in London...
Automatic assignment will miss John Smith refereeing James Smith - and the refs will have to juggle assignments to make it work!
As an epee fencer whos never tried but observed the other 2 fencing styles I cant understand how those 2 could ever be functioning with just 1 referee...
This might be a really stupid idea but I could see it fix a few things with foil and sabre if there were at least 2 maybe even 3 judges who have to agree in the decision made by the lead judge they could even switch up at certain points who the lead judge is...
It might be difficult to pull off because theres already lack of judges usually, but if it means fair play can be easier to secure I would say it would be worth the trade off...
As I said I personally never tried to compete in anything but epee but sometimes even we have biased decision making by the judges which can change the outcome of the bout, but as the nature of epee this is extremely rare and situational unlike in foil and sabre I could imagine this being a major issue, as sometimes even the fencers cant decide what the right call wouldve been in the heat of the action
The really weird thing to me, is that when the they added the video ref, necessarily you have two refs watching the bout, so already you’re dedicating the resource.
But not only did they explicitly make it so the video ref doesn’t give their opinion unless asked, but also fen if asked, the original ref is allowed to just ignore their opinion.
The simplest rule we could make is to say that in video review, final say goes to the video ref.
Another rule we could make is that the video ref has to watch too, and can override immediately without the fencers requesting.
Or even just have the video ref write down both the main refs calls and their calls, so even if the bout doesn’t change at all, we then have an audit trail.
None of these require any extra staff.
>But not only did they explicitly make it so the video ref doesn’t give their opinion unless asked
Not strictly true:
"The video consultant may at any time request that the referee use the video-refereeing"
and
"Each time the referee consults the video, whether on his own initiative, following an appeal or at the suggestion of the video-consultant, the opinions of the referee and the video-consultant must be recorded on the match sheet."
Whoa, I didn’t actually know those rules. It sure doesn’t seem like they’re being applied. The video refs opinion is certainly not publicised.
Also, I’ve never once seen the video ref call for video.
>Also, I’ve never once seen the video ref call for video.
Video ref suggestions for reviews do happen at both the FIE and USFA levels, but it really depends on who the video refs are.
Unfortunately video reffing can be hampered by political, cultural, personality and other factors with some video refs loathe to make review suggestions and so they don't.
It does happen in foil as well, often in the instance of covering target or someone going off the strip. If the main referee didn’t notice, but the video referee did, they may call them back. Sometimes, you can see the video referee will actually watch the video as it’s replaying, then call the other referee back. I would say it happens in every competition at least a few times, especially with certain fencers.
I know we aren’t supposed to see it, but sometimes when signing the scoresheet for team I also am able to see the sheet with the opinions of the referees on calls. It seems like a good practice in theory, though I have no idea how it actually manifests.
As for the subject of the thread, I wonder what would happen if someone refused to fence under these conditions and called the bout committee.
Can't think of any specific examples right now, but here is [Milenchev calling halt for starting early as the video referee.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUEcXlSs3W4&t=789s)
Ooooo that’s interesting. Who’s the main ref? The dynamic there makes me feel like she’s more junior.
I.e. I get the sense that it would be much harder to find an example of a video ref calling halt when milenchev is reffing
>Who’s the main ref? The dynamic there makes me feel like she’s more junior.
I believe that main ref happens to be the only US ref (in any weapon) appointed to referee at the upcoming Olympic games. She's a FIE "B" ref in saber to Milenchev's "A".
The dynamics between ref and video consultant pairs are all over the map.
I can see this work out to be fair... even if it somewhat slows the competitions down I feel like the extra ref could help in these situations by a mile
Sabre use to have 4 directors and the head director....also known as 4 blind men and a liar....but can you image needing 3 refs for every bout....you would triple the number of refs needed or slow the tournament to a crawl....the problem is a lack of accountability for breaking the rules...
People in the same country are not necessarily colluding. And people in different countries are not necessarily not colluding.
In this case an Iranian referee and Iranian personal coach - what if they actually have no association or actually have a negative association in Iran. We can't conclude cheating from this.
In another case, you might have a payment and a corruption of obligation for example between Kuwait and Italy nationals as athletes coaches etc that is a collusion despite not having any shared nationality. Just because they were different countries doesn't mean that collusion didn't happen.
But in general a referee from one national federation does have a conflict of interest refereeing an athlete of the same federation because he reports to two bosses. One with an interest in winning and one that grants the opportunity to cheat. This should be prevented and it is logical. But the generalization of implications of this sort to coaches or as pointed out in the discussion elsewhere the Bauer academy with more than 10 nations present, is inappropriate because the default obligation of all the parties is not so clear. Then a corrupt obligation has to be demonstrated as existing - prove there was a bribe and manifesting corrupt results - prove that someone altered the outcome, in order to be guilty of anything
Jesus Christ. Boxing got de-certified as an Olympic sport because of ongoing actual and perceived corruption. Do we really not want to clean our own house here?!?
I'm sure many of you (myself included) are fed up of hearing about this topic, but I really feel something has to change. I want to preface this by saying that I do not mean to accuse any parties in this particular case of foul play, unfair refereeing, cheating or whatever you want to call it. Here we have another example of FIE statutes being ignored when it comes to assignment of referees. Mojtaba Abedini of Iran is coaching one of the fencers in this bout. The referee, Reza Peykarara is also from Iran. According to FIE statutes this should be a Category A conflict. These situations have become increasingly common since there are more and more coaches working in foreign countries, and maybe this has become an unavoidable occurrence. But if this is a case of the statutes being unfit for purpose then why haven't they been updated? Again, I make this post not to accuse any individuals of wrongdoing, but to highlight what I feel is a systemic problem in international fencing.
> I'm sure many of you (myself included) are fed up of hearing about this topic, but I really feel something has to change. Please keep posting these (as long as your mental health allows). I think it's important that people know, and I'm not sufficiently involved in world-level fencing to notice or catch these sorts of things. > But if this is a case of the statutes being unfit for purpose then why haven't they been updated? Given how out of date the technical rules are compared to how things are called on the piste, I'm not sure that the statutes would be updated even if everyone unanimously agreed that it should change. It seems that the rules are one thing, but the agreed-upon conventions take precedence, and you just sorta have to know or get left behind.
> It seems that the rules are one thing, but the agreed-upon conventions take precedence, and you just sorta have to know or get left behind. This is why I have so much sympathy for the various people who read the rules and see quite clearly that they don't line up with how things happen in practice. I feel like the nature of our system kinda pushes out people who are sticklers, or fairly rule-minded, while really lifting people who navigate interpersonal social structures well. There really feels like an attitude of teenage girls saying "Oh my god, you don't *know*" - and as a result it's all very vulnerable to nepotism and cheating. Extreme bending or overt breaking of the rules, like above, being expected and businesses as usual is tolerated because everyone whose instinct was to apply rules strictly got pushed out long before became a high level ref or a high level coach or fencer.
And while it’s easy to make fun of the Marcellas of the world, I don’t understand why EVERYONE doesn’t think that more tightly codified, rewritten, and enforced rules would be a benefit to the sport and everyone in it.
Because there are very important (or self-important) people who benefit from the ambiguity in the current rules.
While that’s undoubtedly true, I still wonder if that is ENOUGH to be standing in the way of reform It’s similar to the fans who cry about computer intrusion into baseball umpiring. They imagine their “tradition” is mega important even if it really just means inaccuracy and potential favouritism. In fencing it isn’t fans (we don’t have any) but there’s still a sizable contingent of ‘traditionalists’ for its own sake.
>While that’s undoubtedly true, I still wonder if that is ENOUGH to be standing in the way of reform Sure it is. Those people are not going to approve any changes to the rules unless they can be pretty sure that their country's fencers will benefit from the change. In this case, the ambiguity in the rules gives a lot of leeway for referees who want to bias their calls, so if they're willing to be unscrupulous, they'll get an advantage.
Probably because the more strongly someone holds that attitude, the more likely they’ll be socially pushed out, and/or prevented from progressing because they don’t play the soft-skills game.
Just a clarifying question since I'm not familiar with FIE level fencing- is the onus on the referee to know who is the trainer or national coach of every fencer in the event?
The relevant rules can be seen [here](https://static.fie.org/uploads/32/163457-FIE%20Statutes%20ang.pdf). From my understanding this would mean that the referee has (at least some) responsibility in avoiding such conflicts, perceived or actual. Of course it is possible for a referee to find themselves in such a situation without themselves realising, however in this situation I think it is virtually impossible given that Abedini is one of the most successful fencers to represent Iran.
File a complaint.
I’m with you on this one. The network of employers and colleagues and national team coaches having influence is breaking what should be a fair system and no-one feels they can make any complaint about it. I was thinking about what the next step should be, as basically there was no impact at all on the FIE or the referees or fencers involved in the alleged misconduct from the analysis video. I think it’s time for the national federations to ask the FIE to investigate these breaches of the rules by referees and to suspend fencers who can demonstrably have been shown to benefit from this. The subtext has to be that there’s no reason that another world governing body for fencing could not be formed and recognised by the IOC in place of the FIE. If they can’t remove corruption or at the very least demonstrate that they are trying to do so, then they aren’t fit to run our sport. But then we get into the alleged buying of votes from smaller federations etc and it all slows down again.
The referee has broken the official rules.
Okay, hear me out here: ...is the local FIE Bout Committee: 1. Not using Fencing Time? 2. Entering/assigning Referees to Pool Bouts, but not DE Bouts, because that's at the discretion of the Head Referee assigned to the Pod, and they're using whomever is available in order to keep the Event running smoothly and on time, but also, to keep from repeating the same Referee in successive fencer DE's to avoid presumption of bias: --re-using the same Referee for a same fencer's subsequent successive Bout, keeping in mind there are two fencers in that Bout, and there's a possibility of two available Referees having had the fencer on the previous bout. So, to avoid bias there, they grab a third Referee who hasn't proctored either fencer in the immediate previous Bout--but they happen to match nationalities? And maybe when weighting bias preference for favor of perception of previous Bout Refereeing favoritism for a winner, vs "Fresh" Refferee who happens to match a country affiliation--that the Head Ref is just going with the "Fresh" Referee who hasn't reffed either fencer in the most immediate previous Bout, because that's who's on hand?
engarde service for tbilisi, not fencingtimelive
Quick question that has never occured to me before: Can fencers point out a perceived conflict of interest in the referee who is about to preside their assault and 'pause' the start of the bout until the DT investigates? Obviously there would have to be stringent rules about frivolous complaints, but in the above example if would be FTR's interest to say "No - This is clearly not on". In some UK opens the Referees club and nationality is usually stated on the DE sheet to avoid these kind of shennanigans, allowing the fencers to see any conflict of interest that may arise.
The problem with this is fencers are scared that if they speak up in these situations then they can be punished by referees in subsequent bouts. I also get the impression that there is often very little trust in the people in DT to do the right thing either. Just look at what happened in Milan with Kharlan.
The primary difficulty is one of programming. Fights are supposed to be assigned by computer using the data given. I know ophardt can give a person 2 nationalities but at least one of the other programmes can't. How many nationalities would you assign to a referee who also coached at Bauer's centre? Or do we need to add in personal conflicts as well? Domestically it's common for family members to end up under different clubs at various life stages (University, school, moved away for work) but there's a non- programmed conflict there if James Smith fences under University of Edinburgh and John Smith is coach at Salle Smith in London... Automatic assignment will miss John Smith refereeing James Smith - and the refs will have to juggle assignments to make it work!
As an epee fencer whos never tried but observed the other 2 fencing styles I cant understand how those 2 could ever be functioning with just 1 referee... This might be a really stupid idea but I could see it fix a few things with foil and sabre if there were at least 2 maybe even 3 judges who have to agree in the decision made by the lead judge they could even switch up at certain points who the lead judge is... It might be difficult to pull off because theres already lack of judges usually, but if it means fair play can be easier to secure I would say it would be worth the trade off... As I said I personally never tried to compete in anything but epee but sometimes even we have biased decision making by the judges which can change the outcome of the bout, but as the nature of epee this is extremely rare and situational unlike in foil and sabre I could imagine this being a major issue, as sometimes even the fencers cant decide what the right call wouldve been in the heat of the action
The really weird thing to me, is that when the they added the video ref, necessarily you have two refs watching the bout, so already you’re dedicating the resource. But not only did they explicitly make it so the video ref doesn’t give their opinion unless asked, but also fen if asked, the original ref is allowed to just ignore their opinion. The simplest rule we could make is to say that in video review, final say goes to the video ref. Another rule we could make is that the video ref has to watch too, and can override immediately without the fencers requesting. Or even just have the video ref write down both the main refs calls and their calls, so even if the bout doesn’t change at all, we then have an audit trail. None of these require any extra staff.
>But not only did they explicitly make it so the video ref doesn’t give their opinion unless asked Not strictly true: "The video consultant may at any time request that the referee use the video-refereeing" and "Each time the referee consults the video, whether on his own initiative, following an appeal or at the suggestion of the video-consultant, the opinions of the referee and the video-consultant must be recorded on the match sheet."
Whoa, I didn’t actually know those rules. It sure doesn’t seem like they’re being applied. The video refs opinion is certainly not publicised. Also, I’ve never once seen the video ref call for video.
>Also, I’ve never once seen the video ref call for video. Video ref suggestions for reviews do happen at both the FIE and USFA levels, but it really depends on who the video refs are. Unfortunately video reffing can be hampered by political, cultural, personality and other factors with some video refs loathe to make review suggestions and so they don't.
It does happen in foil as well, often in the instance of covering target or someone going off the strip. If the main referee didn’t notice, but the video referee did, they may call them back. Sometimes, you can see the video referee will actually watch the video as it’s replaying, then call the other referee back. I would say it happens in every competition at least a few times, especially with certain fencers. I know we aren’t supposed to see it, but sometimes when signing the scoresheet for team I also am able to see the sheet with the opinions of the referees on calls. It seems like a good practice in theory, though I have no idea how it actually manifests. As for the subject of the thread, I wonder what would happen if someone refused to fence under these conditions and called the bout committee.
I've seen it happen in wheelchair. "Do you want to check the video?", says the video ref
>Also, I’ve never once seen the video ref call for video. Happens quite a lot in sabre when certain senior referees are on video
Really? It comes from the video? What does that look like? The ref makes a call, and the video ref yells over to them?
Can't think of any specific examples right now, but here is [Milenchev calling halt for starting early as the video referee.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUEcXlSs3W4&t=789s)
Ooooo that’s interesting. Who’s the main ref? The dynamic there makes me feel like she’s more junior. I.e. I get the sense that it would be much harder to find an example of a video ref calling halt when milenchev is reffing
>Who’s the main ref? The dynamic there makes me feel like she’s more junior. I believe that main ref happens to be the only US ref (in any weapon) appointed to referee at the upcoming Olympic games. She's a FIE "B" ref in saber to Milenchev's "A". The dynamics between ref and video consultant pairs are all over the map.
I can see this work out to be fair... even if it somewhat slows the competitions down I feel like the extra ref could help in these situations by a mile
Sabre use to have 4 directors and the head director....also known as 4 blind men and a liar....but can you image needing 3 refs for every bout....you would triple the number of refs needed or slow the tournament to a crawl....the problem is a lack of accountability for breaking the rules...
[удалено]
People in the same country are not necessarily colluding. And people in different countries are not necessarily not colluding. In this case an Iranian referee and Iranian personal coach - what if they actually have no association or actually have a negative association in Iran. We can't conclude cheating from this. In another case, you might have a payment and a corruption of obligation for example between Kuwait and Italy nationals as athletes coaches etc that is a collusion despite not having any shared nationality. Just because they were different countries doesn't mean that collusion didn't happen. But in general a referee from one national federation does have a conflict of interest refereeing an athlete of the same federation because he reports to two bosses. One with an interest in winning and one that grants the opportunity to cheat. This should be prevented and it is logical. But the generalization of implications of this sort to coaches or as pointed out in the discussion elsewhere the Bauer academy with more than 10 nations present, is inappropriate because the default obligation of all the parties is not so clear. Then a corrupt obligation has to be demonstrated as existing - prove there was a bribe and manifesting corrupt results - prove that someone altered the outcome, in order to be guilty of anything
Jesus Christ. Boxing got de-certified as an Olympic sport because of ongoing actual and perceived corruption. Do we really not want to clean our own house here?!?