Handball: IHF and Qatar ruin the big event
Former chair of the IHF Playing Rules and Referees (PRC) Commission, Christer Ahl, takes the IHF and Qatar to task for inconsistent officiating and unfair advantages for the host nation.
(JW says: Christer Ahl has been the chairman of the IHF’s PRC for many years. Christer became a whistleblower in 2008 after the corruption and match fixing/refereeing scandal at Asia’s qualification tournaments for the Beijing Olympics. As it is good tradition in olympic sports Christer, the whistleblower, was punished by IHF pharaoh Hassan Moustafa and the powerful IOC member, OCA president and real handball boss Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah. Christer lost his job in 2009 when IHF elections were manipulated.)
This should have been the exciting, biennial competition, where all the focus would be on the star players and the entertainment and excitement they are able to offer. There would be an expectation of fair play and evenhanded refereeing, in the spirit of ‘let the best team win!’ But this time, the IHF and the Qatari host conspired in various ways, so that the focus instead was on the mercenaries of what purported to be a Qatari national team, the many advantages they obtained, and the totally inconsistent refereeing which often was the deciding factor in key games.