{"id":265777,"date":"2017-07-12T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=265777"},"modified":"2017-07-12T12:17:25","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T19:17:25","slug":"catching-up-with-mark-koganov-about-proposed-fina-water-polo-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/catching-up-with-mark-koganov-about-proposed-fina-water-polo-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching up with Mark Koganov about Proposed FINA Water Polo Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Koganov<\/strong>, who represented his native Azerbaijan at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rio2016.com\/en\/water-polo\" target=\"_blank\">2016 Olympic Games in Rio<\/a> as a water polo referee, is comfortable taking on about any subject related to the sport. First as a player in the former Soviet Union and then as a world-class <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fina.org\/content\/fina-officials-lists\" target=\"_blank\">FINA<\/a> referee for matches all over the world, Koganov is passionate about water polo\u2014and has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.collegiatewaterpolo.org\/varsity\/news\/2016-17\/082916Koganov\" target=\"_blank\">decided opinions<\/a> about efforts to grow the sport worldwide.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.waterpoloplanet.com\/HTML_Russ_pages\/rt01_Referee_Interviews.html\" target=\"_blank\">Cited<\/a> by <strong>WaterPoloPlanet\u2019s<\/strong> Russ Thompson as one of the top neutral referees in the world, he has whistled all major polo championships including the 2016 Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s European Water Polo Championships, the 2015 FINA World Championships, the 2016 LEN Water Polo Champions League Final Six, NCAA men\u2019s and women\u2019s water polo championships, and numerous CWPA and MPSF matches.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2016 Koganov was elected to the LEN Technical Water Polo Committee which oversees all water polo events sanctioned by LEN in Europe including the European Championships and the professional leagues. Prior to traveling to Budapest for a meeting Thursday of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fina.org\/event\/fina-technical-congress-water-polo\" target=\"_blank\">FINA\u2019s Technical Water Polo Congress<\/a>, which is considering new water polo rules,\u00a0Koganov spoke with <em>Swimming World<\/em> about those changes\u2014including reduced rosters, smaller field dimensions, a smaller ball and an increase in the number of women\u2019s teams at the 2020 Tokyo Games\u2014that will transform international polo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is your understanding of the reasons behind the controversial rule changes that FINA has proposed adopting for men\u2019s and women\u2019s water polo prior to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was the agenda of FINA, which entered the top group of Olympic sports, after London. FINA Aquatics enters into Group 1 with track and field and gymnastics. These sports are the most visible at the Olympics and producing the most money, according to TV contracts.<\/p>\n<p>Now FINA wants to consolidate its position. My guess is that if FINA wants to have more events to place more athletes in medals events for the Olympic Games, FINA would have to add more swimming events.<\/p>\n<p>But IOC is basically saying: \u201cOkay guys, you have a certain number of aquatic sports.\u201d They don\u2019t separate water polo, synchro, diving or swimming. Aquatics has a certain quote \u2014I don\u2019t remember how much is a quote, 1,400 or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>They basically said: \u201cYou want to have more events in swimming, you have to work something out within your sport, within aquatics.\u201d If you have this kind of proposal that you can be number one at the Olympics by events, you would probably go and grab it, no matter what. And water polo is not in a position to defend itself.<\/p>\n<p>As a businessman, I understand FINA. Being part of the water polo family I don\u2019t recognize it. I also think that countries should do more to defend water polo, but again this is a matter of money. And somebody at the top of FINA made a business decision just to have aquatics number one discipline in Olympics. We will go for 48 events now in swimming, but we have to stay at the same number of athletes in the Olympics. So, somebody has to suffer; somebody should go down.<\/p>\n<p>It was a proposal to have 11 players in water polo and it was a proposal to have the equal number on the women\u2019s side, to have 12 and 12. That I don\u2019t know why it isn\u2019t happening\u2014why we have ten at women\u2019s side and it\u2019s not equal to men.<\/p>\n<p>We lost about 18 quotes from water polo. But again, it\u2019s probably a negotiation with the IOC to go to 48 events with swimming that [water polo] has to give up some spots.<\/p>\n<p>We have two perspectives here: one is the financial and prestige perspective\u2014being the number one sport at the Olympics\u2014[the other] is a technical perspective, which is damaging water polo, hurting water polo as we\u2019re going back\u2026 we played water polo with 11 players before 1981 or 1982, but back when we had five minute quarters. Total game time was only 20 minutes with 11 players. Now we have 32 minutes [and] with 11 players it\u2019s impossible. I agree with everybody; it\u2019s impossible to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But as a referee, your assignment is to carry out whatever the rules are that are proscribed\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It has nothing to do with officials. Officials are just whistling the game as it is. This is about the game, and the conditioning of the teams\u2014fatigue, exhaustion and all this. It has nothing to do with referees.<\/p>\n<p>I would say this way: it wouldn\u2019t be a good game to watch. It would be a more physical game than we have now. It will be a slower game. It would be a less interesting game, because 11 players cannot perform the same as 13 players.<\/p>\n<p>If you are not fresh enough you cannot perform your technique and your tactics.<\/p>\n<p>I will tell you more: having 11 players will make the gap between weaker and strong countries even bigger. Players who play professionally year around\u2014and we\u2019re talking only about European countries\u2014they probably would adjust to that. Players who don\u2019t play professionally\u2014players from Latin America, from USA, from Japan, from Asia\u2014they will have problems because of the more physically demanding game.<\/p>\n<p>Before now if there was a gap between Japan and Hungary that was 10-12 goals, probably now it\u2019s going to be 15-20 goals. This is the situation that we don\u2019t want to be in. And it\u2019s not good for the sport.<\/p>\n<p>We have no choice now. IOC is ruling its own event\u2014the Olympic Games. They don\u2019t care. If we don\u2019t accept the conditions, we\u2019re going to be out. We have to deal with the situation right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On that point, you will not be voting on the major changes this Thursday in Budapest.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was the decision of the Bureau just today that all these proposals there is not enough data to justify the changes. Basically, the proposal that was tested for two \u2013 three years was different than the final proposal at the Congress.<\/p>\n<p>This proposal had never been tried at the senior level. At that level, they had only tried 25. We didn\u2019t try 20 seconds for the shot clock. It had been tried only at the junior level, which is not enough data to decide.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, the proposal was not good enough to consider. That\u2019s why I think it was wise for FINA to pull it back and start from scratch with a new committee\u2014which is going to be elected on 22nd of July.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But the IOC has decided that changes need to be made before the next Olympics. Do you agree that this will happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you read carefully, there is a proposal for 11 players for Olympic Games only. And this proposal is going to be voted in Congress. And I\u2019m sure it\u2019d going to pass because otherwise water polo is going to be out of the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>People in the water polo community are pointing fingers at FINA for problems with the sport.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not talking about Serbian, or Hungarian or Italian\u2014we have a problem with water polo to produce money.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody is speaking about FINA. Yes, FINA has made a lot of mistakes. [But] I\u2019m just amazed\u2014I read an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterpology.com\/gender-equity-13-player-roster\/\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> by Frank Meunier, who was once president of Water Polo Canada. He suggested pulling out from FINA.<\/p>\n<p>I thought: \u201cYou are from inside, how can you talk about separating water polo from FINA. Are you crazy?!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you don\u2019t have enough support you\u2019re out of the Olympics. Look at what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/07\/09\/sports\/olympics-to-drop-baseball-and-softball-in-2012.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">happened<\/a> to baseball and softball.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You see what kind of new sports are coming to the Olympics? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nba.com\/article\/2017\/06\/09\/ioc-votes-include-3-3-basketball-2020-tokyo-olympics\" target=\"_blank\">3-on-3 basketball<\/a>. And you know what? People are talking very arrogantly [saying]: \u201cWhat kind of sport is this?\u201d I\u2019ve seen this sport at the European Games two years ago. It\u2019s fun\u2014it\u2019s really fun. [It\u2019s a] very fast game\u2014very short [20 minutes]. With DJ playing music during game. Add also the surroundings, somewhere around beach and you really have to watch it.<\/p>\n<p>In water polo, we don\u2019t have even close to that. So, we need to change [our] attitude, we need to change everything, before we start talking about our sport. Things are passing us by\u2014that\u2019s true. Which is why we need to change something to survive.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s definitely going to be a new technical committee in FINA for water polo. There\u2019s going to be a lot of new people. I just hope that this committee is going to be working in a completely different approach.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s this talk about \u201cgender equality\u201d but then there currently are no women on FINA\u2019s decision-making committee.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let me tell you how it works. First of all, the Technical Committee is appointed by the FINA Bureau from nominations made by countries and continents. If the national federation of Australia doesn\u2019t nominate a woman, they cannot make it up. If the national federation of USA does not nominate a woman, they cannot make it up.<\/p>\n<p>This is not a FINA problem. It\u2019s the national federations that don\u2019t nominate women. FINA\u2019s just choosing from a pool that\u2019s offered. I don\u2019t know who they have now. But if there is a woman I\u2019m sure she will be on the committee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you think that the suggested game changes\u201425-meter pool length, smaller ball, tighter time management\u2014do you think they will make the game more exciting and ultimately more profitable?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Absolutely not. The size of the ball and the size of the field have absolutely nothing to do with making this sport fun. This is not the problem with the sport. I\u2019ve been talking about this for many years: 25 second or 30 second shot clock is not the problem. Or two minutes time-out or three, four timeouts per game or two, who cares.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is too many stoppages. Too many whistles. Minor foul which is free throw that provides an advantage to the defending team for destroying the attack. You are destroying the attack and you do not get punished. And exclusions are not punished enough. 20-second exclusion\u2014most of the teams would rather take the exclusion rather than let [attacking team] score live goal.<\/p>\n<p>Center is a problem. 80% of exclusions happen at the center. The physicality and brutality that is happening at the center\u2014this is a problem. We have to think about how to make it less physical and less static at the center.<\/p>\n<p>Problems with the sport have nothing to do with the number of players, size of the field, ball size. It&#8217;s an absolutely dead-end direction that FINA was going with these rule changes proposal. It\u2019s a dead end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor Mark Koganov, who represented his native Azerbaijan at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio as a water polo referee, is comfortable taking on about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4875,"featured_media":265780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[59716,184,61531,62486,60192,60384],"class_list":["post-265777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-polo","tag-2017-fina-world-championships","tag-fina","tag-len","tag-mark-koganov","tag-michael-randazzo","tag-water-polo-planet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - 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