In light of the latest changes to the WFDF rules I was wondering if someone could clarify the procedure for getting a rule change to the World game? Presumably we would need to make a proposal to the UKUA? This would need to be ratified by UKUA board and then carried forward to the WFDF board? I am assuming any change would take years to get through.
I am however interested in what rule changes if any people in the UK reckon would be worthwhile. For the last few years I have become more and more concerned about the impact of squad sizes on the sport and the trend for growing squads in domestic and international competition and I would like to start a debate that will hopefully lead in a few years to a rule limiting squad sizes. It is not unusual for teams to turn up at tournaments with more than 20 players, many of whom are asked to rest games, or many of whom only play a few points. I dont think its unusual anymore for a player to go through a Tour tournament playing less than 10 points - that can equate to approximately 1 match per season. I believe that an important element to winning a match/tournament/championship should be player fitness. Decision making and throwing skill under pressure of fatigue should be part of the skill. At the moment the emphasis is on teams hoovering up lots of talent and keeping their best players at maximal fitness to do a very specialised role. My very simple suggestion would be to limit teams to 14 players for a match. Possibly it would also be worth limiting squads to 16 for a weekend or 20 for a week long tournament, but that may not be necessary. The advantages for this rule include: - Increasing the importance for physical fitness - Increased excitement due to more turnovers - Greater emphasis on tactical/sideline decision making (in selecting squads, rotating players etc) - All players become more important to the success of the team - Greater emphasis on all round performance And off the field benefits include... - Players get greater value for money - Greater spread of high level players amongst teams (as there are fewer squad spaces available) - Cutting the gap between teams/nations with greater depth than others (as there is no advantage to picking 25 great players over picking 14 great players - therefore a successful team/country only need 14 great players to compete with the best) The arguments that I expect will be made against will be based on overdoing it and injuries etc. but I dont believe them, as the top players often play practically every point anyway when things get tough. Having a limit that allows you to sub off every other point is hardly forcing people to overdo it. So here goes. I'd like to gather support towards changing the rules to allow a maximum of 14 players to be used in any match. Who's with me? __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
