The fairness of judging law enforcement has inevitably been accompanied since the birth of sports. This phenomenon has become more common since professional sports implemented the main and away competition system. Because in most cases, the teams at home are easy to profit from the referee’s tendentious blow penalty, so this blow penalty is often called “home whistle”.
At the beginning of this century, the problem of suspected “home whistle” in CBA became more and more serious. There were many “Devil home” in the league, and the difference between the main club and away performance of its home club was obvious. In those two years, a northern team even had a wonderful scene of almost losing away from the playoffs and returning to the home court to maintain a full victory.
In 2003, Li Yuanwei, who served as the director of the basket management center, started a series of reforms aimed at the league. For the playoffs with more intense competition and higher public attention, Li Yuanwei proposed that the CBA league should invite foreign referees to law enforcement at the right time. This is also done for two purposes: 1. Ensure the fairness and fairness of the competition to the greatest extent; 2. Learn from the law enforcement experience of excellent foreign referees at close range.
Soon, the right time came.
In the 2004-2005 CBA Finals, the competition was held between Jiangsu team and Guangdong team, with extremely high attention, and for the first time, I got the live broadcast of NBA TV games-this is the first time that American audiences have watched the live broadcast of CBA games. Based on various considerations, CBA, which has developed to the tenth year, finally hired foreign referees to enforce the law for the first time in the finals.
Ivan Zacara, a 45-year-old Czech, became the first foreign referee in CBA history. The reason why Ivan was chosen was quite sufficient-he had known the Chinese Basketball Association for four to five years and was full of familiarity and trust with each other; In addition, Ivan’s resume was also quite successful, he has been a regular customer of law enforcement women’s basketball in several European men’s Euroleague Basketball Championships, and has also participated in the law enforcement work of the World Universiade and the Asian Games.
According to the arrangement of the Chinese Basketball Association, Ivan will enforce all competitions in the CBA finals of that year. On April 13, 2005, in the first battle of Su Yue’s finals, Ivan became the referee and started the law enforcement process in CBA with two Chinese referees.
In this group of high-profile duel, Ivan brought the international standard blow penalty scale-strictly grasping hand movements, and relaxing or even encouraging appropriate physical confrontation. This made the players from both sides of Jiangsu and Guangdong, who represented the highest level in China at that time, quite uncomfortable-Li Qun, the absolute core of Guangdong, was caught by Ivan in the sixth criminal less than two minutes from the beginning of the fourth quarter, as a result, the graduation directly led to the defeat of the team at home. The situation in Jiangsu was even worse. Tang Zhengdong, Zhang Cheng and McCoy were all punished by six criminals.
There were 63 fouls in total, and four people in the two teams had graduated. This was the meeting etiquette that Yang referee Ivan gave to players from both sides of Jiangsu and Guangdong. The CCTV narrator guest who summarized and commented after the game also sighed, “who can adapt to the new penalty scale as soon as possible, then who will laugh to the end.”
In fact, the bigger “nightmare” of the players of the two teams is still behind. From the second game of the finals, another foreign referee joined the ranks of law enforcement. He was Lazarus, the Greek, and his law enforcement experience was even greater-He fined the men’s basketball final of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and also enforced the Sino-Korean decisive battle of the 2003 Harbin men’s basketball Asian Championships.
Therefore, in the next four finals, a combination of 2 foreign referees and 1 Chinese referee law enforcement appeared. In defense, he habitually stretched out his hand, walked fengshui ball, attacked for three seconds, and hit people with a ball…… These problems ignored by CBA in the past were instantly magnified with the arrival of foreign judges. Ivan, the presiding officer, is also called the “European killer”.
During the finals, the two foreign officials repeatedly showed their strict law enforcement side. In the third key battle of “Tianwang mountain” after the two teams were 1-1 flat, Du Feng, who was not clean enough in the past, was caught by the Greek foreign whistle for four walks; however, the standard for the main team Jiangsu has not been relaxed. Foreign Aid center McCoy was blown twice and a technical foul. In the third quarter of the game, the backward Guangdong scored the strongest points, and the foreign referee decided to punish “2+1” twice without hesitation, which was enough to make the home fans mad “.
In the end, the Jiangsu team, which occupied the home court advantage, lost two home court victories with a total score of 2-3, which was an unprecedented result in the CBA playoffs in previous years, especially the decisive fifth game, the home team Jiangsu won only 18 free throws, while the visiting team Guangdong won 45 free throws. We can’t see the common “main and away gap” in CBA in the past “.
Even after many years, when the fans of Su Yue talked about the duel of that year, no matter how they fought, few people could point out the dispute over penalty in the finals, the law enforcement Effect of foreign referees in CBA was well received.
The Chinese Basketball Association, which tasted the sweetness, has invited “foreign whistle” to help the team every season since then. However, considering the cost and other factors, foreign referees are usually used only in the semi-finals or even the finals. When the time came to the First Battle of the finals of the 2007-08 season, CBA even appeared the scene of the first collective enforcement by three foreign whistle in history.
In addition to Ivan and Lazarus, who have been recognized, have become old acquaintances for many times to enforce CBA, the CBA stadium has also welcomed new faces like black referee maradaka. In the 2006 CBA semi-final, Su Yue collided again. Tang Zhengdong, the MVP winner of Jiangsu province, was fouled three times in the beginning of 2 minutes 15 seconds, and two of them came from the whistle of malataka, they are all small hand movements aimed at Tang Zhengdong’s defense.
In contrast, due to the large number of national players, the Guangdong team often participates in international competitions leading player, which is much more suitable for the punishment scale of European referees. Guangdong coach Li Chunjiang also concluded: “European referees are extremely strict with the little tricks on players’ hands, which is different from the previous CBA law enforcement standards, so many Chinese players still don’t adapt.”
Regarding Yu Yang’s punishment scale, the referee who had participated in the on-site work, Changlu Ping, thought: “The punishment of Yang whistle and the scale of the International Basketball Federation competition are more acceptable, this will help players play better in international competitions.” In China’s men’s basketball of the Beijing Olympic cycle, Douke’s strong enemy’s achievement in the promotion elimination competition was also related to the adaptation to foreign referees.
However, with the passage of time, especially from the 2008 finals, CBA Foreign referees also began to encounter some doubts. Guangdong coach Li Chunjiang and Liaoning coach Guo Shiqiang both reserved personal opinions on the law enforcement of foreign whistle. In the 2008-2009 season finals G3, Wang Shipeng’s shot 13 seconds before the final was directly hit to the head by the Murat of the chase. The Referee Ivan did not say anything. The Xinjiang team at home beat Guangdong team 98-95.
At this point, the foreign referee gradually stepped down from the altar in CBA. The final scene of Guangdong and Xinjiang even appeared the embarrassing scene that the audience once shouted “black whistle” in unison. The level of foreign referees hired by CBA in the playoffs is even worse.
Time came to 2013, CBA hired foreign judges to regenerate variables. This year, the Asian Basketball Federation stipulated that from now on, Asian referees can only be used in all levels of Asian competitions, covering national team competitions and National leagues. This means that the CBA can only be found from Asia if it invites “foreign whistle”. Since then, the high-level judges in Europe and America have not been able to use CBA.
Considering the overall level of the Asian referee team, the Chinese Basketball Association had no choice but to shrink the scale of foreign referees. Only one referee from Lebanon and Philippines was hired, among 3-4 domestic referees and 1 foreign referee, 3 people will be drawn to participate in the law enforcement of the playoffs, this specification is far inferior to the previous configuration of “one foreign master, one foreign vice, and one local vice.
While the trust crisis encountered by foreign referees has intensified, CBA’s requirements for domestic referees have also been continuously improved.
On the one hand, the punishment for the referee’s blow punishment is plus-sized. Starting from the 2017-2018 season, CBA company issued a referee report to implement the management of “upgrade” or “downgrade” for judges who often missed or misjudged; On the other hand, CBA companies have also begun to gradually implement the professionalization of judges, improve the treatment of judges (the income of some judges may be higher than the top salary of some poor teams) and attach importance to it, and try their best to promote the improvement of local referee business level.
In this way, foreign referees gradually faded out of the historical stage of CBA. In the CBA playoffs in recent years, domestic referees were responsible for law enforcement.
Welcome to our wechat public number “Houchang Village sports team” to see, there are more NBA, CBA related archaeology, comments and character content>>
(Text/ayong)