Question for FIBA officials
 

One of the things that has amused me during the FIBA World Championships has been the athletes' reactions to calls by officials. It's clear that they want to say something, but they many times are dealing with an official from a different country. It seems like staring is the usual form of comment.

I'm just curious how FIBA officials deal with comments from players who do not share their native tongue. Do you go by the player's tone ("Them sounds like fightin' words to me!"), or is knowledge of international invective one of the job requirements to get these multi-national games?

Wait for the international words of displeasure, its the same in any language and everyone understands the meaning...... F.U.

j/k

something like that yes :p

I belive all referees are required to speak english (there is a rule stating that during international games when explanations are required english shall be spoken). But I don't know really, I'm far far far far far from WC level :p

Good thing they don't play FIBA rules in California, otherwise we'd have another big protest on our hands.

English is the official language of FIBA games, many players from different countries could say a little bit, and some might just use body language to express what they wanna say, ha!

You will find that there are some Fiba officials who do not speak any English at all and yet they are allowed to referee in Internationals. I completely disregard any comments made to me by foreign players, although I do keep an eye on their body language when they try talking to me, cheers.

I was scorekepper in one game 1½ years ago. There were trouble with a player who was entered incorrectly so I called for the referee. Now here comes the problem, the referee spoke a decent english (and he was a good ref too ;) ) but on one side were a finnish coach, on the other was from poland (I think). None of the coaches spoke english, we had quite some trouble explaining what went wrong, with 4 languages being spoken at the same time! (Swedish, English, Finnish and Polish) But we managed to clear it up (with many thanks to the ref who did an excellent job).

Let's just say I'm not sure how I would handle that situation myself :p

FIBA requirements state the English is the officials language and international officials should be able to speak English. I officiated a men's game in 1993 between Cleveland State University and the Polish National Men's Team at CSU. The officiating crew consisted of two USA Basketball officials and an official from Poland; the game was played using NCAA Men's Rules. The official from Poland was a civil engineer (I am a structural engineer) and I am pretty sure that he spoke better English than my partner and I. He told us that no one on the coaching staff or any of the players spoke English. But he did say that all of the players knew how to say and use the F-word in all of its infinite variations. My fellow USA Basketball official and I thought that was very funny.

MTD, Sr.

Oh how true, they all do, when it comes to that nobody ever have a problem showing what they feel, in any language :rolleyes:

Mr. DeNucci, F-words are actually becoming the global language :) lolz~

I've T'd a few players that have "addressed" me in foreign languages. Generally I find that the body language and tone gives what they are saying away.

Last year we invited to our meeting Nancy Éthier who is a FIBA ref from Canada. She explained that she often could not do a pre game since some referees could not communicate in english.