One of the unpleasant sights in modern team sports today that has crept in at all levels is players seeking to have an opponent, booked or sent off. It is not good to watch no matter whether the offending player warrants such a penalty or not.
Yet many sports now witness more and more players turning to the officials pleading for a decision during a game, even arguing, if in their opinion the official has made a mistake. The days of accepting the decision and playing on seem few and far between.
Many will argue that television has created this problem. That with more cameras it becomes clearer that an offence occurred, but what many fail to appreciate is that the individuals officiating can only judge on what they see, and they do not have more than one angle to view the alleged offence. They do have in some sports assistants, but even then their view can be blocked. Television technology has meant that now they have someone who has access to all the camera angles and can alert them if they have missed something that could influence the outcome of the game. However such technology does not exist at every level of the sport and in some elite sports not even in every competition.
What is interesting is that when there is no technology available to refer a decision or have it reviewed, players and teams seem far more willing to accept the decisions of the officials. Trust it would appear is restored.
So why do players appeal such decisions in games? Clearly it is because they feel that their team or they individually have been wronged. It may have been an opposition player conning the referee, it could have been deliberate foul play or even blatant cheating. The key factor is they feel that the decision is unfair, unjust and therefore warrants some form of protest.
As mentioned such protests in the field of play have become regular and frequent across a number of sports. Yet how many protests are there away from the field of play?
While players and coaches and even club owners and presidents will happily publicly criticise underhand or deceitful behaviour on the field of play, why is it so few will speak out against such behaviours off the field?
If people witness or are aware of something being wrong, underhand or unfair off the field of play how many clubs, teams or even individual players or coaches will stand up and be counted? Will they speak up then against a similar injustice?
Locally in Western Australia some clubs in some sports have been threatened by the powers that be if they rock the boat. Others have been forced to remove individuals who have stood up to be heard from official positions at the club or face penalties. In these situations the clubs will try and justify their acquiescing, their weakness as doing what is best in the interests of their club. They have a point, but ultimately they simply strengthen the position of those doing wrong and looking to prevent any voices of dissent.
In the current sporting climate it is rare to see clubs, coaches or players take a stand. There is too much at stake, personally. However if we cast our minds back, and this is why knowing the history of sport is so important, there was a time when players put aside their own interests for the good of all. There was a sense of duty to help each other, and those following in their footsteps.
Before that though, how many people can name the Men’s Singles Champion at Wimbledon in 1973?
The day before what was probably the biggest day of his life, his first Grand Slam singles final, The French Open, the unseeded Nikola Pilic of what was then Yugoslavia received a telegram from the All England Club who host Wimbledon. The telegram apparently advised Pilic that the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), the governing body of the sport at the time, had informed the All England Club that Pilic was not in good standing with the Yugoslavian Tennis Federation. If you were not in good standing with your national Federation you were prohibited from participating in Grand Slam events.
Despite the unseeded Pilic being about to play in the French Open men’s singles final, the All England Club advised him that he was not welcome at Wimbledon. The French had chosen to ignore the International Lawn Tennis Federation’s rules, but the All England Club was going to adhere to them.
Pilic had fallen out with the Yugoslavian Tennis Federation when despite having represented his country in the Davis Cup for 12 years he opted out of a tie against New Zealand to play a professional doubles tournament in Canada. Yugoslavia was expected to cruise past New Zealand, but they lost 3-2. The blame was directed at Pilic who it was reported had put money ahead of his country. Had Yugoslavia won would anyone have said a thing?
In the background was the Association of Tennis Professionals which had been formed around 1968 when the players who had turned professional were allowed to once again contest the Grand Slam tournaments. They had tried to negotiate on behalf of the players with the International Lawn Tennis Federation over issues such as prize money and the scheduling of tournaments, but they were making little headway.
After not surprisingly losing the final of the French Open Pilic told the President of the Association of Tennis Professionals that he had been barred from playing at Wimbledon.
Cliff Drysdale was the President, and he realised that this was the time when the players had to take away the power from those running the sport. After all the fans and the television viewers tune in to see the players.
Within the matter of a few days and taking the view that if Pilic doesn’t play none of the top professionals will play either, Drysdale had most of the top fifty players signed to withdraw unless there was a change of stance by the All England Club and the International Lawn Tennis Federation.
American Stan Smith was the defending Champion. He was obviously keen to defend his title and was reportedly in the form of his life and was expected to make a good fist of it.
He faced a huge dilemma. If he played the stance taken by his fellow players on behalf of Pilic, and for the long term future of the game would fall apart. If he withdrew as defending Champion to support his colleagues it would send the strongest message ever to those in power.
The powers that be then, and still in many sports, failed to respect the athletes. They did not credit them as being particularly smart, and were convinced that all were self-centred.
As Wimbledon 1973 edged nearer the ILTF refused to budge. The media of the day labelled the players ‘selfish’ for looking to harm one of, if not the most prestigious tournaments. They were convinced that at the eleventh hour the players would cave in and agree to play. All of the big names were backing Pilic, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Arthur Ashe, John Newcombe to name a few.
The day before the draw was due to be made there was an attempt to broker a deal. However the deal that was being put forward did not have the approval of the ILTF board and fell over.
On the day of the draw for the 1973 Wimbledon tournament the big name players packed their bags and left London. In total 81 of the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) players, including defending champion Stan Smith withdrew.
Three players from Romania (Ilie Nastase), Czechoslavakia (Jan Kodes), and Russia (Alex Metreveli), all stayed and competed. All would claim that their Eastern Bloc Governments ordered them to stay and compete. England’s Roger Taylor also stayed and competed after immense public pressure from everyone in his homeland.
Despite the tournament going ahead the organisers of other major Tennis tournaments soon realised that the best players were serious. They also realised that without the best players fans were not going to buy tickets, and more importantly television stations were not going to pay for a tournament. Which in turn would diminish the money paid by sponsors.
It was time to negotiate, and the key outcomes were that Pilic’s ban was lifted, and he played in the US Open. The players also gained the freedom to play in whichever tournaments they wished, and they gained three seats on the board of the Men’s International Professional Tennis Council, which meant that they now had a say on the scheduling of tournaments and the playing conditions that they were expected to perform in. With the dawn of a better schedule, one that was set in stone, the television stations suddenly were queuing up to come on board.
Many in the sport point to this moment in time as the turning point for the sport.
As for Stan Smith, the man who sacrificed the defence of his Wimbledon title, he never played in another Grand Slam final. He lost in the semi finals of the US Open and at Wimbledon in 1974 despite being two sets to love up lost to Ken Rosewall. He has since said that 1973 was his last opportunity to win another Grand Slam title. Whether he has regrets for taking the stance he did it is hard to know. One thing we do know is that the sport owes him a great deal.
It also owes the other 81 players who stood together, united to enforce change and make sure that one wrong never happened again. That is the power that exists when people stand as one for the greater good of the sport.
As for who won Wimbledon in 1973…
The final was contested by Czechoslavakia’s Jan Kodes and Russia’s Alex Metreveli with Kodes winning in straight sets. He claimed his piece of history, but sadly very few remember his name or the circumstances behind his victory.
The point about officials only being able to respond to what they see is well made and you then go on to discuss tennis. So I will compare officiating in tennis with that used in field hockey.
During a top level tennis match the on court officials number eight when we include line judges, the net-official and the match Umpire. There is also immediate recourse to Hawkeye whenever it is considered necessary. Indeed there is often a play through from Hawkeye on television even when it has not been called for by the umpire.
In hockey, which is played on a pitch about ten times the size of a tennis court, we have two officials. I trust no one will contest that the decisions that need to be made on a hockey pitch are very wide ranging and often more difficult to get right than any in/out decision made during a tennis match. In addition video referral is restricted to very specific situations, namely decisions that involve the award of a goal or a penalty corner, and the video umpire is forbidden from making subjective judgements – although many do. The VU is in fact limited to offering advise to the match umpire who is the one who is supposed to make the final decision.
It doe not have to be like this. There is no good reason that International level matches and even some of the top club competitions such as the European Hockey League could not be supervised by a greater number of officials.
I have for some years now been advocating that hockey has a match umpire who runs diagonals between the two circles and he or she is assisted by four flag officials running the arcs between the four goal-posts and overlapping around the half line. This set up would usually provided a triangulation of views for incidents anywhere on the pitch.
It would, in my view, be better if a match umpire personally viewed a referral concerning any incident which had been played out in front of him/her. To this end the video recording/playback equipment could be placed pitch-side in a trailer (which could be moved between venues). The ‘third official’ could be called on to supervise players while the match umpire was off-field. I think this is an improvement on having a match umpire standing around waiting to be advised by someone who was not involved in the initial play as it occurred.