DIV 1 Reffing shenanigans...

[Syd (NSPL)]

I've calmed down a bit so I' m going to make another post on this Paris reffing issue and put down my thoughts about it in a bit more detail.

Can I ask the mods to split this thread as this discussion deserves a place of its own and so do the posts regarding NK's current predicament?

Division One teams reffing is a neccessary evil that we have all come to live with and I myself have reffed with my previous team a couple of times. Its not ideal and has caused plenty of upset and discussion in the past, but we are told this is the only way to get full ref coverage at Millennium events. When we have a season of five ranking events or more, the system just about works and we see teams who perform well ranking above plenty of teams who have reffed and not performed so well. Not ideal as I say, but it's at least reasonably fair to all teams competing in Division One.

The problem this season is two-fold.

First, all contracted teams (CPL/SPL/Div 1) signed their contracts under the belief that they were to get five ranking events. A fair belief as that was what was written in the contract and has been the case for the past couple of seasons. After the contracts have been signed, the Millennium announce that Paris is to be an Open event, non-ranking, and that all contracted teams are obliged to attend or face fines, penalty, or (dare I say it) a poorly disguised ban from the rest of the season. This dramatically shortened the season and results in one poor showing at an event pretty much ruling out all chances of promotion, whereas with five events there was some room for recovery. Worst of all, this is a contract breach by the Millennium. Something they wave in teams faces all the time when a team has issues, but when the shoe is on the other foot, something they are not even prepared to discuss. I have lost count of the number of times I have raised this issue with the Millennium this season and no-one on the board has been willing to speak to me regarding it once!

Second, any reasonable person can quickly conclude that awarding teams series points for a non ranking event where all the other teams in Division One can't earn series points is simply not fair. I don't need to say any more on this - it is blatantly obvious! The event should have been covered by paid refs.

Now, before I get on to offering a solution, I want all my cards on the table here as I do own a team competing in this division and I can predict the responses of making these arguments in my team's own interest. I want to make it clear that I personally have disagreed with making Paris an open event from the moment they announced it. And I also want to make clear that regardless of my team's participation in Division One of the Millennium, these arguments and my following suggestion are based on common sense and my beliefs on what is right and fair to all playing in the division.

So, my solution?

Well, we cannot ignore the situation we are now in. Those teams who have reffed Paris can not have the ranking points they have been awarded taken away from them. They reffed in good faith and the mistakes here are not their fault. They also deserve the same ranking points as every other reffing team this season - not some half assed full points minus whatever that the Millennium have come up with to try and soften the blow of this glaring **** up.

All the CPL/SPL/Div 1 teams played Paris (baring one exception I know of). It makes perfect sense to award all of these teams ranking points regardless of the different format that was played at the event. Simply replace the team results into their season-divisions depending on where they placed with a point adjustment for the event-division they ended up competing in on the Sunday. Give them ranking points!

And finally, to make it all fair to everyone and cancel out any problems this big mess has caused, make the final rankings points for each team the best four scores from all five events they play throughout the season.

In my opinion, this is the only fair, reasonable and considerate thing to do at this point in the season.

I would like to offer a chance for everyone in a locked Millennium division to respond and discuss this here and then, if a majority agree that this is the best way forward, I suggest we organise a letter of complaint and a petition to the Millennium as a collective. Perhaps only the Division One teams should be involved as this directly affects them more than any others, but the SPL/CPL teams also have an argument about the contract being broken in respect of expecting five ranking events this season too - I don't know and that's not my call. I'll leave that to open discussion.

Its about time we started to stand up for ourselves guys. We don't need a player's union to do it. We are the paying customers and at some point we have to say enough is enough. I think this is it.

 

[Mario]

There you go Syd.

 

[davejfox]

What a shambles. If I was good enough to be playing D1 I'd kick up a ****storm. That's a god damn disgrace and just show's a complete lack of thought. I think it's probably stating the obvious, but it looks like they just thought of a way around putting their hands in their pockets and didn't think about anything other than that. It's no secret that the MS is just a money spinner but this is taking the piss. It wouldn't have cost them that much to even get in some local French refs, and it would have kept their customers much, much happier.

 

[Markie C]

Hey syd great idea but a few things stand out for me.

Some teams didn't put out a full squad or even they sent there second and i know of a team who sent there third team out for this event, so that's a wall that will further down the line we will run into.

I know your team played amazingly but the argument could be ""well our team had a harder draw and so on and so forth.


I am saying this right or have i got the total wrong end of the stick ?

 

[Bunka Monky]

I think the above point would be cancelled out if you take the best 4 results from the 5, as you could drop the paris result anyway?

 

[Syd (NSPL)]

Hey syd great idea but a few things stand out for me.

Some teams didn't put out a full squad or even they sent there second and i know of a team who sent there third team out for this event, so that's a wall that will further down the line we will run into.

----


I am saying this right or have i got the total wrong end of the stick ?

Hi Markie, That train of thought is exactly why I suggested only the top four results should count towards the season. I completely understand that some teams did not field their strongest squad for Paris and that was why I suggested only four highest scores from the five events.

Nothing is a perfect solution because its such an almighty mess the Millennium have made, but in my eye's if the reffing teams get points, so should the rest of the Division One teams - just like they were promised when they signed that contract at the start of the year.

I know your team played amazingly but the argument could be ""well our team had a harder draw and so on and so forth.

I'm sure the guys who played will be happy to read that. The draws are always a factor. I made my point in another thread about Paris being non-ranking before the event too, so you can see (I hope) my motives are not to better my team's chances, but to try and get some justice out of this whole mess. I did make that clear in the first post, but expect that reaction of course. If we're going to stop this blatant abuse of contracted teams from the Millennium then we need to stand together.

 

[Chicago]

All the CPL/SPL/Div 1 teams played Paris (baring one exception I know of). It makes perfect sense to award all of these teams ranking points regardless of the different format that was played at the event. Simply replace the team results into their season-divisions depending on where they placed with a point adjustment for the event-division they ended up competing in on the Sunday. Give them ranking points!

That's not fair at all - teams played an event under the good-faith expectation that it would not count towards their standings. You can't suddenly make it count after the fact.

In my opinion, this is the only fair, reasonable and considerate thing to do at this point in the season.

Here's the correct solution:

- All ref points from the four non-Paris events count as the AVERAGE of a team's other scores.
- Pay the teams who reffed Paris as if they were paid refs and don't give them points.


That's fair. Teams that ref are ranked according to their performance, the same as teams who do not ref.

 

[onasilverbike]

Here's the correct solution:

- All ref points from the four non-Paris events count as the AVERAGE of a team's other scores.
- Pay the teams who reffed Paris as if they were paid refs and don't give them points.


That's fair. Teams that ref are ranked according to their performance, the same as teams who do not ref.

Maybe, however; that gives those teams reffing no incentive to do so (other than any travel/accommodation allowance they may receive and the saving on paint/pre event practice bills).

 

[Syd (NSPL)]

That's not fair at all - teams played an event under the good-faith expectation that it would not count towards their standings. You can't suddenly make it count after the fact.



Here's the correct solution:

- All ref points from the four non-Paris events count as the AVERAGE of a team's other scores.
- Pay the teams who reffed Paris as if they were paid refs and don't give them points.


That's fair. Teams that ref are ranked according to their performance, the same as teams who do not ref.

Chicago. With all due respect you are talking about changing the way ref points are awarded across the board. That is a bigger and wider issue.

The problem here is that ref teams at Paris have been awarded ranking points at an event where any other team could not earn them. That's what needs to be addressed immediately. The bigger issue of team's ref points in general is a discussion for another day.

Loosing the seasons lowest event score (i.e. top four scores count out of five events) does even things out a bit.

There is no perfect solution because its such a mess. My solution is just one option. I guess the other one is to remove the ref points from the Paris event and compensate the teams in another way as you suggest.

Maybe I should re-phrase my question to a simple, "should we complain about the current situation and hope something is done about it or just let it pass unchallenged?"

 

[Markie C]

I think we should say some thing about it because its a bit of a joke.

2 Teams have jumped 10 places because of this and will no doubt effect the outcome of the whole season.

What do we do though?