Forfeits

[Bostonhammer]

What measures the league is taking to reduce the number of forfeits. Our team has been affected by three forfeits this season, and there have been six total in our division. This has impacted the competitiveness our division. Are there any plans to address this issue moving forward?

Last fall, three of the four games in the final week of the season were forfeited, ultimately deciding which teams advanced to the playoffs and which were relegated.

[Jeremy Mordkoff]

We'd love to hear your thoughts/ideas on this. It is a constant topic of conversation. 

Recently we changed the penalty for forfeits from 2 card points to 2 standings points, then we allowed teams to forfeit one game a season without penalty. Perhaps we should only allow that rule to apply on certain weeks of the season? 

Any other ideas? 

Jeremy Mordkoff

Webmaster, www.othsl.org

 

On Sat, Jul 19, 2025 at 6:02 PM Bostonhammer <bbwh...@gmail.com> wrote:

What measures the league is taking to reduce the number of forfeits. Our team has been affected by three forfeits this season, and there have been six total in our division. This has impacted the competitiveness our division. Are there any plans to address this issue moving forward?

Last fall, three of the four games in the final week of the season were forfeited, ultimately deciding which teams advanced to the playoffs and which were relegated.

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[Bostonhammer]

I have a few ideas.

Forfeits tend to punish other teams, especially when teams use them strategically after their league position is already determined—whether they’re safely in the playoffs, already relegated, or mathematically out of contention for playoff or relegation. In these cases, the current penalties often have no real impact, making them ineffective deterrents.  I don't believe any forfeits should be "allowed".

To address this, I propose the following measures:

1. Point or Card Point Deductions in Final Weeks
   If a team forfeits in the final one or two weeks and is in a playoff position:
   • Deduct 2 league points or 2 card points, whichever has a greater impact.
   • If the team has 13+ card points, apply the card deduction.
   • If the point deduction would remove them from playoff contention, apply that instead.
   • If neither affects their current standing, carry the 2-point deduction into the next season.
2. Carry-Over Penalties for Relegated Teams
   If a team is already relegated, any point deduction should carry over to the next season to maintain accountability.
3. Financial Penalties
   Introduce a cash fine for forfeiting, adding a tangible consequence regardless of league position.

 The carry over penalty was implemented in a league I played a long time ago and it drastically cut down on the number of forfeits. The only teams that forfeited were teams that were disbanding anyway.

The above punishments ensure that forfeits carry real consequences, regardless of a team’s standing.

[Brad Hickey]

Something could be considered for habitual offenders but if the rules allow a forfeit with proper notice (which is absolutely reasonable) then it doesn’t technically matter whether it happens in week 2 or week 10. The impact on the standings is the same.

The roster restrictions, school vacations and spring season bleeding into summer make many of the age groups challenging to field a proper lineup at times. This is a rec league after all.

Perhaps forfeits could be used in tiebreaker considerations but I think forcing a team to risk a safety issue by arriving with only 9-10 players vs. a severe penalty or eviction from the league would be unwise. Losing points in the standings is already a pretty severe penalty.

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/othsl/CANkJ7k7-h%2BOBUA-8oEskgwaFus7DvWxMJc74C-o%3DV0-WZx-Ezg%40mail.gmail.com.

[James Carr]

Field availability is one way to help. One change the league could make is to ban 9 a.m start times (or allow 11 a.m. start times). This might help reduce forfeits that result from teams not being able to find alternate fields for weather related cancelations. 9 a.m. start times effectively reduce the number of available slots at fields by half because of the league rule that games have to be done by noon. This is a big problem for the Boston area teams especially who often share fields with other teams. We need to restrict teams to 8 am or 10 am start times so that four teams can share fields on Sunday mornings. When teams reserve fields for 9 am this isn't possible. The Rec departments should manage this better but unfortunately they don't always stay on top of it. If the league had a rule about it it would help a lot.

On Saturday, July 19, 2025 at 6:42:31 PM UTC-4 webmaster wrote:

[Joe Barrett]

This past season we avoided a forfeit by playing a double header of 2 60

minute games on the away date with our opponent 

Joe

On Jul 22, 2025, at 11:13 AM, Brad Hickey <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[KC]

Hello everyone - we've created a poll to gather some of the reasons for forfeits. Please select all the options that your team has used to forfeit or add your reason if you don't see it in the poll. It's anonymous so feel free to speak freely.

The link to the poll is here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGxBPdndMLTn0pgokd-G71VoHAT0Nvf3i_bWlUbV3Y216yhw/viewform

Thanks,

Kofi

[Richard Fontes]

I think the poll is going to have a fair amount of selection bias in it. My experience is that the teams that forfeit are not well organized and therefore wouldn't respond to a poll like this and/or even know about this distribution list. Also, it's been my experience that most teams that forfeit a bunch are on the verge of dissolving, which means they are probably not around anymore to respond to this poll (survivorship bias).

I like and support all of the recommendations given so far. 

BSSL has a forfeit bond that would complement many of the standings-related penalties that have already been suggested. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/othsl/b219e0ee-4fb8-40bc-9eea-656646d3c4aen%40googlegroups.com.

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Richard A. Fontes, CFA

Marlborough, Ma

508-667-9405

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Book time with me: https://calendly.com/richard-fontes 

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[Kofi Hamilton]

Thanks for the concern Richard - fyi we will NOT be using the poll results to make any decisions as we have only a handful of responses.

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