CHEATERS

[K K]

Hello everyone,

Since we're getting to the end of September soon, I thought it would be
a good thing to write down a few ideas the Polish national team and
myself have come up with. I've split them in multiple posts for logic's
sake, so sorry but you'll be reading this intro several times Emotikon
tongue

We think cheating should be severely punished. By cheating we mean just
generally finding a way of having sight of the table, like moving the
glasses or cutting the foam etc.

So if you get caught cheating during the season:
1st time: you get a game loss.
2nd time: you get disqualified from the tournament.
3rd time: you get disqualified from the tournament, and receive a one
year penalty forbidding any participation in international tournaments.
Whether you're also banned from national tournaments is up to your
country's federation to decide.

Of course, in order to get this system working, there needs to be a
system for referies where they can take note of who got caught cheating.

That's it, let me know your thoughts

[Krystian Kisiel]

That's it, let me know your thoughts Emotikon smile

[thade.ro...@googlemail.com]

Hi all, Thade here.

I'll throw a couple things about this into the room:

First of all it goes without saying that I as well am firmly against any kind of cheating in turnaments. It is however super important that we at first have a clear and unmistakable definition what cheating encompasses and how the process of finding cheaters should look like. That is: how much or what kind of evidence do you need to convict any player of cheating. Who should have the power to do so?

Also, should cheating by players own sight be the only offense to be punished this harshly? There are other means to get a unfair advantage over the opponent. Potential doping  or secretly passed match-relevant informations from not the coach or outside of time outs come to mind but there might be others.

Thirdly this issue is of course an IBSA-only thing. You can't exclude cheating players from any and all international turnaments if they so choose not to go by IBSA rules. They certainly can exclude cheaters from the IBSA list by themselves though.

By the way: How long should the record of cheating instances be kept? One year? Two years? Certainly not for ever...

Lastly a thing to consider: What to do with the IBSA ranking points blacklisted players get from national turnaments? Should they still be able to submit them to the IBSA ranking list?

I don't really see a big problem of cheating in our sports as for now but I might be just double blind. A clear and strong ruling against it would be a good thing nevertheless.