Mark Koganov, TWPC Vice President, explains us why these new rules

After having been a player of the Soviet Union, then FINA referee, Mark KOGANOV is now Vice President of the Technical Committee of LEN for Water Polo, (TWPC). He became one of the big names of the World Water Polo. He has been considered one of the best referees in the world. In addition to the various European and World Championships, he represented Azerbaijan, as a neutral referee, during the last Rio Olympics. Mark KOGANOV is one of the main actors in the elaboration of the new water polo rules that should appear in the next months (see the article « New rules that will be tested before being validated »). We asked him some questions for understand better the direction of this new rules.

Hello Sir Koganov. Thank you for your time and consideration. First, could you explain what the FINA conferences, then how often they take place?

Conferences are very complicit and expensive events, so they are not scheduled in regular base, but rather upon necessity.

FINA had water polo conference 4 years ago in Cancun, but before Cancun, the last water polo conference was in 90-s of the last century. Because Cancun didn’t bring expected results another conference was initiated by FINA President J.Magleoni on the last water polo Congress in Budapest last summer. It should be a good indicator for you how serious FINA is taking concerns of water polo community.

Who participates in these conferences?

All stakeholders of our game are involved in these conferences: all National Federation from around the world, coaches, players, referees, administrators, experts from TV, marketing, media, of course Water Polo Technical Committee and FINA leadership.

Adam Krikorian, head Women USA coach, also proposes his ideas for the development of Waterpolo

In addition to the regulation’s topics, what are the topics discussed during these conference?

Regulations of the game were only part of this conference. The other topics were: development of the game worldwide, evolution of rules of water polo, competition system change, different approach from TV, social media, marketing, using of new technologies, presentation, experience of other International Sport Federations, new discipline development (beach water polo).

From a technical point of view, how a new rule is created?

The process started 5 months ago with meeting of FINA TWPC representatives with coaches, referees and other experts of the game in Barcelona. The result of this meeting was creation of working groups developing ideas in different aspects of game: rules, events, re-writing of existing rules, technology, development. In working group for new rule proposals were included top coaches from the past and current, independed experts, TWPC members.

All ideas generated in that meeting in Barcelona, other meetings, conversations over Skype, results of TWPC survey on rules, were included in proposal that was discussed in the Conference. In addition there were some ideas that pop up after survey of National Federations was analyzed just before the beginning of the Conference.

So, FINA tried to collect all possible opinions, ideas, to listen all interesting parties from around the world. It has been done in maximally transparent and open manner.

Some new rules seem relevant, don’t you think that will not so difficult to set up and make more difficult the refereeing of a match ? Don’t you think that the game will be lower than before due to the interruption…?

The intend of new proposals is to have less interruptions on the game, more actions rather than static situations, discourage defense from fouling, make game understandable for general public.

TWPC decided first to implement rules that can be easy to adjust for referees and teams and to test longer some radical proposals.

Referees will be more important in the game than before. Do you think that they haven’t too much influence during the game?

Definitely referees will NOT have more influence. Our intend was to decrease influence to the game of referees and some of the proposals are targeting this aim.

As part of this desire to make the game faster and technical, reduce the size of the field and return to 25m had been mentioned in the past. This point does not appear in the new proposed guidelines, what about it?

All experts came to the conclusion in the near past that size of the ball and field are not our problems. Also, many had a feeling that it is different game under that rule and that some basic principles of the game were affected. Small size ball made shots deadly dangerous for goalkeepers and could lead to heavy injuries.

One year ago, new rules were tested at the U18 World Championships in Podgorica. Why were they abandoned?

This completion were almost 2 years ago. The problem was that statistical data from this competition and analyses were not properly done. Full proposal was never tested at senior competitions, except 25 m field. So, how it was possible even to discuss it if we don’t have any facts and numbers in hands?

At the U18 World Championships in Podgorica, some rules, like playing on 25m, were tested

When these new measures will be tested and what will be their selection criterion to determine if they are definitely adopted or not?

You can find the presentation that I made, during the Conference, on the tests of the proposed rules (find it by clicking here).

Briefly, there are few stages for testing: special commission consist of TWPC members, coaches, referees will be created to evaluate DATA from testing games. This commission will recommend or not recommend some proposals to FINA TWPC. TWPC will have to approve or disapprove these proposals and send them to FINA Extraordinary Water Polo Congress in November 2018 for final approval.

Do you think that these new rules will have an effect on the world hierarchy? Some nations will not more taking benefit than others due to their type of game (speed, physics …)

We hope that new rules together with applying rules as they are written will give opportunity to more countries to be competitive a highest level and we will see more teams compete for medals. This is one of our main goals to achieve.

From a global point of view, what do you think about the water polo’s evolution for the last decade?

In my opinion the game was going to more physical and less technical direction. We see less and less individuals, stars., characters. All players make same passes, same shots, play same tactical schemes. You can not distinguish one team from another if you don’t know who is playing. Game became less attractive for the public because they don’t understand why there was a whistle in that situation and no whistle in exactly the same situation now.

Excluding major events we see less and less spectators during water polo games and major TV companies don’t broadcast games of national championships any more even in major water polo countries.

All this is very alarming.

One of the aims of these new rules is to reduce brutality

It has been mentioned several times that Water polo might not be an Olympic discipline in the future. Is it true? What are the reasons?

International Olympic Committee (IOC) is reviewing each sport from time to time in regards to be in program of Olympic Games.

One of the major criterium is UNIVERSALITY of the sport. If game is not developed in all continents,

if for decades in major competion there are medalsit only from the same continent, if the game is understable by small nuber of experts only, if new technologies are not part of the game, it gives oppotunity for IOC to reconsider sport in Olympic program.

There is long line of federations waiting to be included in Olympic program. These federations are ready to sucrifise and somehow to adopt there sport just to be in Olympics.. We have sport that is first team sport included in Olympic program, we are integral part of history of modern Olympic games . But this doesn’t gibe us immunity from being out of Olympucs. So, we have to be very careful and proactive in this regard.

What are the directions for the development of Water Polo by FINA for 2020 and 2024 ant the means implemented to carry this out?

The main direction would be to develop water polo in different regions of the world, to engage young generations in our sport as yearly as possible. And FINA already approved new competition , Open World Championships U16 , and I would like to underline, OPEN to all countries without any qualification. We hope to have this event already in 2019. And after this FINA will apply even to younger age categories introducing new events.

We will restructure existing FINA competitions having 20 and even 24 teams participate in FINA World Championships, re-approach to competitions for development countries giving them direct access to major FINA events.

There are big plans on developing Beach Water polo as a concept that all sports are moving towards to: dynamic, simple, inexpensive, fun.

And I’m very glad to announce FINA Bureau decision to have first Beach Water polo competitions for 6 men and 6 women teams at next FINA World Championship in South Korea in July 2019.

These are the main directions our sport will go in next few years.

We use to finish all our interviews by the “Silly question” : what is your favorite team for this summer in Barcelona?

My favorite team always was and will be is team of referees. I’m their biggest fun!!!!

Crédits Photo : Waterpoloplanet