Concerning the reffering in the Moscow Centurio Event

[teo_supreme]

This is the situation that occured during our last game in Moscow, and below we quote the message sended to the Centurio board and await for an official reply concerning the event. I'll post their answer as soon as we have it.

TO: C.E.P.L board
FROM: Team Supreme Athens
Concerning: The events of Moscow centurio events.

Dear Sir/Mrs,

As captain of team Supreme Athens I feel that it is my duty to submit this letter of complaint regarding the events that took place during the Moscow leg of the Centurio series. I would like to condemn the unprofessional and biased actions of the referee body during Sunday’s preliminary game.

I hereby present you the events that took place on Sunday July 15th during our game with team Ukraine Lions:

We were playing the last game of the group stage (D1) with the Ukraine lions. If we won that game with a maximum of 2 lost points (i.e. win with 4-2), then we would be the second team of our group to advance to the next stage and the Ukraine lions would be eliminated. If we won that game with 3 or more lost points (i.e. win with 4-3) the Ukraine lions would advance to the next stage and we would be eliminated.

The proceedings took place as follows: After 5 points the game was 3-2 on our favor which meant that whoever won that game would go on to the next stage. After some game time there were 3 Ukraine lions and 3 Supreme players on the field. One Supreme player run down the right tape and got simultaneously hit with an opposing player positioned on the center pepsis. As our player was walking out of the field he got pushed in the shoulder by the Ukraine Lion player in front of the referee’s eyes. This is physical contact and in any paintball tournament around the world the bad mannered player would be awarded a penalty for the game and ejected from the tournament. Instead, the referees decided to call a 1for1 against our team for complaining (for the physical contact call not being given).

In the meantime one of the Ukraine lion players positioned on the left tape (in the snake) got hit by our center back player. So the game is now in a 1on1 situation with our player located in the large center 50 M bunker and the opposing player in the right tape close to the snake. The Ukraine lion player got obviously hit in front of spectators and referees multiple times and rightly pulled out of the game. Our player run down, hit the buzzer and got checked by at least 3 referees for hits and gun speed. The gun speed was around the 275 mark, the player performed multiple turns in order for the referees to check him meticulously and was deemed by everyone around as “clean”. The head ref awarded the point, our player picked up his pods and slowly exited the field. Our team mates, pit crew, and friends along with all the spectators started cheering and congratulating each other for winning the game and advancing on the next round.

After some time it became apparent to us that the Ukrainian team was communicating with the Russian refs in the field in their own language. Mistakenly trusting the objective foundations of the tournament we cleared the pits and only left our captain behind in order to avoid any conflicts and let the refs do their job uninterrupted. After a 10 minute discussion between the referees and the Ukrainian team the head ref started saying something about replaying the game because of a “ref mistake”. That was all the clarification we were given regarding that call (15 minutes after the point was awarded…). Up to this point the referees are in breach of a main rule stated on the Centurio’s rulebook. “All referees shall perform their duties and shall make decisions in an unbiased manner.” Given that their call to replay the game was never explained and that the referees only decided they made a mistake after having the opposing team yell to them for 15 minutes in Russian, it is my opinion (shared with all the people witnessing the happening) that the referrees were ruthlessly biased against my team. This is highlighted by the fact that the referees had a private discussion with the other team away from our team members in a language foreign to us and seemed determined on their decision for no apparent reason when they contacted our own team captain.

When our team captain requested from the Head ref to shed light on the call he just made it clear that he could not provide us with an explanation other than “ref mistake” which seemed to be the only English the Russian refs knew on that day. Being under a lot of pressure and realizing the irrationality of his actions the head ref tried to communicate with another ref wearing a distinctive yellow shirt and holding a walkie talkie that was not present during the incident and was not reffing in that particular field. It was made clear to us that this was the Ultimate ref and that after some discussion with the head ref (in Russian ofcourse) he made the decision to replay the game. At this point the field’s referees are breaching two additional rules stated clearly in your rulebook. The first is that “All calls and judgments on a field are subject to the review of the Head Referee for that field. All calls and judgments made or approved by the Head Referee are final, and are not subject to further review and may not be changed except by him.” The Head Referee was clearly in a predicament between favouring the Ukrainian team or awarding the award to us as he should do. Therefore he clearly consulted a third party that had nothing to do with the incident and let this person take over the situation and take the decisions for him. This is undoubtedly against the rule above which clearly states that any calls or judgments may be changed only by him. In addition, this person evidently acted as an Ultimate Ref of the tournament, since he was not present at the incident, he did not ref in any field, and once he consulted the head ref and repeated the decision (“refs mistake”) the Head Ref pointed out to us that since the Ultimate said so he could not do anything about the situation. Conversely I quote from your rulebook “There is no tournament ultimate ref in the Centurio Series.”

The parody had not ended however. After 15 minutes of discussion between us and the refs and at least 20-25 minutes from the end of the game the referrees decided that we had 2 minutes ? to enter the field and play. May I remind you that when we where called back to discuss the “refs mistake” most of our players had already picked up their pods and gear and headed back to our team station. With no warning the refs decided that we should play the game and be given 2 minutes?? When no player on our team was geared up and ready to play and all Ukrainian players where waiting ready on the other side condifent that the game was going to be replayed.. As you may imagine our players did not have the appropriate time to enter the field before the 10 second warning and we had to play the point shorthanded. We lost the point and most of our players left the field refusing to finish playing the game.

Even if we disregard the details above it is unacceptable for an organisation such as the Centurio to hire Russian referees in an event located in Russia with most teams coming from Russia or the nearby countries. By doing so you are dooming the referees to be biased. It is also unacceptable to have referees and event organisers that do not speak english. Of all the people that we spoke with only the head ref spoke the language whereas the opposing team had the advantage of speaking the same language with organisers and refs alike. To sum up it is unacceptable to have on the field refs who are ready to break the fundament rules of reffing that are used in a worldwide basis. Apart from the rules that the refs violated and our stated in your rulebook (mentioned above) the referees dishonoured the most vital rule in reffing: That a call can not be reversed. During my career in paintball I have played in numerous countries and countless tournaments. I have never in my life seen a call reversed in this way. Only in exceptional circumstances have I seen a call reversed after the flag hang and while the players are still in the field. In our case there were no such circumstances regarding the game situation and even if they were and they were not apparent to us and the several spectators watching the game they were never explained to us. In addition the decision was made between the refs and the Ukrainian players and was announced a good 10 minutes after the game was already awarded to us. I have no doubt in my mind that such an injustice and infringement of this principal rule in paintball has never happened again in the history of the sport.

To conclude, team Supreme Athens is a professionally run team and we expect to attend profesionally organised events. Our goal is to represent our country in the best possible manner and compete at the highest level in the best European series. After the Moscow event the team and our sponsors feel disappointed with the organisation and are seriously considering of departing from the series if this issue is not resolved and the quality of the organisation is not guaranteed. The injustice that occurred on that day had serious consequences on the team’s standings since we finished 13th rather than a minimum of 8th had the referees and organisers done their job correctly. Given that our division will be locked next year this has serious implications on the team’s motivation to continue playing the series.

Thank you for your attention to this matter I look forward for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Theodore Callitsis, Captain Of Team Supreme

 

[tsh]

did you get an answer?

My team hab also reffing problems last year on the centurio league, but this tops it all.

 

[mewwy]

If everything you wrote here is how things happened and you've quoted the rules as stated, i cant see how the refs reversed the call. It sounds like you were on the end of some unfair treatment and specifically, not being allowed to have the conversation in english where you could hear what the Ukraine's argument was.

Hope you get an apology, will be interesting to hear what they say, as the team i play for is going out to the Prague leg.

mew

 

[tsh]

marshalling always wasn't that good you could expect from an international series like the EEPL. On one event they had on one field some non paintball people. They only gave them an introdution in paintballrules and let them on the field to marshall.
And that Teams from the east of Europe have better cards isn't really a secret.

 

[teo_supreme]

unfortunately we haven't received a single answer from them, either a " Sorry, can't talk about it after game is over " or something better.

Nothing, and I don't think that's the way to treat your customer after this kind of complaint.

 

[Robbo]

Welcome to Paintball !!!

Sh!t happens, get used to it coz what's done is done mate and you ain't ever gonna get what you want ......
You can write all the letters you want, scream as loud as you want, you can even get a 100,000 people to demonstrate outside the head ref's house but it won't change a damn thing.
You just gotta suck it up and move on, any other strategy is a complete waste of time and effort.

 

[teo_supreme]

i agree 100% but the thing is that the " I aint changing my decision because it's final " should have taken place when needed *in the field* and not causing us all this frustration.

anyway the intial purpose of the letter is submiting our complaints in a formal manner to the centurio organization and making it public so people /players and everyone involved to see what has happened and how it's handled by the so called organisation of the series.

 

[tsh]

Welcome to Paintball !!!

Sh!t happens, get used to it coz what's done is done mate and you ain't ever gonna get what you want ......
You can write all the letters you want, scream as loud as you want, you can even get a 100,000 people to demonstrate outside the head ref's house but it won't change a damn thing.
You just gotta suck it up and move on, any other strategy is a complete waste of time and effort.

unfortunaly you are right. But at the EEPL such things happen every year, so the only possibility is not to join this league and thats kind of sad, because besides the marshalling it is a nice league

 

[Robbo]

Look guys, listen up coz I don't wanna give you any false ideas here.
Sh!t like this is always gonna happen, I got shafted in Chicago a few years back because of a falsified score sheet and even though the powers that be realised it had been done, they wouldn't change it...now I ain't saying I am anything special but if they are gonna fu#k me over then don't don't be too surprised when it all comes knocking on your door.

Playing tournament paintball ain't got fu#k all to do with what's right and wrong when we have pro teams all thinking the shortest route to a win is to go around the rule book.
'Suck it up and move past it' is by far the best advice anybody can give you mate.

 

[Steve Hancock]

I agree that it would be futile to try and get this particular situation remedied. There is no way the decision will be reversed. But do you also think it is pointless publicizing it, in an effort to pressure the organisers into acting to reduce the chance of it recurring at future events?