An article from the Hindustan Times published in the fieldhockey.com website on 4th June 2019.
‘Focus on limiting changes to hockey,’ says FIH’s CEO Thierry Weil
Change is the only constant in international hockey, a sport that sees such frequent tinkering in its rules and tournament formats that even its ardent fans find it hard to keep up.
B Shrikant
Change is the only constant in international hockey, a sport that sees such frequent tinkering in its rules and tournament formats that even its ardent fans find it hard to keep up.
For example, the qualifying programme for the Olympic Games has been changed four times in the last three decades.
In the Olympics, the host country, five continental champions and six qualifiers make the 12-team field, and though the continental championships remain intact, the qualifying event has been changed regularly—a single tournament gave way to three events of eight teams each (till 2012), which was replaced by the Hockey World League, which in turn gave way to the Pro League and FIH (international hockey federation) Series (Open and Finals).
The Pro League currently involves eight top teams playing each other on home and away basis while the other competition involves a series of FIH Series Open events followed by three 8-team Finals.
However, even as eight teams—India, Japan, South Africa, Poland, Russia, Uzbekistan, USA and Mexico—get ready for the second event in the FIH Series Finals in Bhubaneswar, which will be held from June 6-15, comes the news that the event will be discontinued from next year.
Similarly, the FIH has dumped the Champions Trophy, and reworked rules nearly every year as the game has metamorphosed from a match of two halves to one involving four quarters of 15 minutes each.
So, why does the FIH introduce so many changes, unlike sports like football and tennis, whose basic structure has remained the same?
Hindustan Times put this question to Thierry Weil, FIH’s chief executive officer and he agreed that there have been too many changes.
As far as the FIH Series is concerned, Weil blamed financial burdens for scrapping the tournament.
“The FIH Series involves teams that are not in the Pro League, provide them a chance to qualify for the Olympics,” he said. But participating in these events is a big financial burden on these teams. Also, we found out that there was a conflict with the activities of the continental federations which were also conducting similar tournaments. I agree that changes have come too frequently but many of them were necessary, like ‘no offside’ because it was not conducive to the fast-pace of hockey. When I took over as CEO (in April 2018), I have asked them to limit these changes. My focus has been on standardising the calendar and evolving the Pro League,” Weil said.
Meanwhile, the game will continue to see some big changes in the next few years.
Pro League 2 in the offing
The FIH is planning to launch a second division of Pro League, tentatively named Pro League 2, which will involve teams ranked between 9 to 20 and introduce promotions and relegations.
“It’s one of the ideas we are working on,” Weil said. “Recently, we have introduced a two-year home and away system which will reduce by half the travel in the current format.”
The FIH is likely to roll out the second division from next year.
Big investments
Weil said the FIH has made significant investments in introducing a new ranking system from January 2020, and a new synthetic turf which reduces dependence on water. The roll out of a new match-based ranking system will also promote bilateral series involving top teams.
“Each match will become important as it will involve some points. All matches recognised by FIH will contribute towards the ranking of the team,” he said.
Introduction of a new turf before 2024 is the most ambitious project that FIH has taken up, as water scarcity is a growing reality that impedes the widespread adoption of the current astroturf, especially in countries like India.
“Currently we are in investment mode and have made big investments in the rankings system, new turf and promotion of Pro League,” Weil said.
The title of this newspaper article is misleading; the “Rules” written about are not the Rules of Hockey or FIH Tournament Regulations, (the latter concern the way in which players may compete in matches in an FIH Tournament.). Whether or nor a match is played in two halfs or four quarters does not much effect the way in which players play – but may make the game more high paced or ‘frantic’.
Whatever the current perception, the FIH Executive does not approve several changes to the Rules every year – they are very conservative and always have been.
In the first of these areas, the Rules of Hockey, huge change is needed to rectify the mistakes made in the past twenty or so years and to improve the way in which the game is played and officiated.
What is likely to happen is that the “no change” mantra, which is advocated above, will conflate changes to the way teams qualify for the Olympic Games and World Cups, with change to the Rules of Hockey (what is drafted by the Rules Committee and published as the Rules of Hockey by the FIH). As usual the FIH are not communicating clearly and neither is the newspaper reporter.
Thierry Weil was not talking primarily about the Rules of Hockey but about the Regulations concerning League and Tournament formats and the means of qualification to World Level events, as well as about economics and water shortage concerns and standards for pitch surfaces, Technical Specifications such as these are not at all the same thing as “the Rules” as commonly understood.
If there is concern about the frequency of past changes to the Rules of Hockey this can be addressed by discarding from ‘practice’ those changes which the FIH Rules Committee have not actually made and dissuading umpires (and Umpire Managers) from imposing their own personal interpretations as if Rules.
The invention that an on target shot at the goal could not be considered to be dangerous play, springs to mind. A stationary player cannot obstruct, is another. A third:- Aerial Rules (whatever they might be) do not apply to either shots at the goal or to deflections. The list of what will not be found in any rule-book but is applied as if it can be, goes on and on and the FIH Executive just look the other way even though they must know they have NOT approved these ‘Rules’. See
https://martinzigzag.com/2018/09/21/unauthorized-rul…-the-netherlands/
Why the (sic) newly appointed Thierry Weil, who came to the his FIH post directly from a post with FIFA, was asked in 2019 about hockey Rules when at the time he knew nothing at all about hockey and could not have mentioned any (sic) recent change, is a mystery. He knew there was no Offside Rule, but that was finally deleted in 1997, long before those then officiating at the top levels began umpiring.
The Offside Rule was not deleted because it slowed the game. If that was a concern then we would not have a prohibition on playing the ball directly into the opponents circle from a free ball awarded in the opponent’s 23m area, until the ball had been moved 5m. This so clutters the game that the corner format had to be changed because it became unworkable. That change, a restart for the attacking team on the 23m line, fortuitously was a an improvement on the corner it replaced, but its introduction was forced on the Rules Committee. Hopefully one day they will withdraw the restriction on the Free ball awarded in the 23m area (but retain the 23m restart – and STOP CALLING IT A CORNER). The Offside Rule was deleted because umpires kept making erroneous off-side decisions and annoying players and coaches – the reason for the deletion was as simple as that.
I believe it is necessary to make more than forty changes to the Rules of Hockey, some of them, like calling a Free Hit a Free Ball and not calling a 23m Restart a Corner, are just ‘housekeeping, while others, such as rewrites of the Obstruction Rule, the Ball Body Contact Rule and the Dangerously Played Ball Rule require extensive revision and additional material added to them, because perceptions and bad habits need to be altered.
Rules of Hockey 
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