Professionals have felt the urge to do something, as the sport is less spectacular than it should be. As the International Olympic Committee expressed its intention to make the sport more spectacular for Rio (the upcoming Olympic Games in 2016) officials are required to take prompt action.

Fina is planning to make changes. The main ideas are the following: (1) smaller playing area /23 metres instead of 30 metres/, (2) less players /6 instead of 7/ and last but not least (3) one size smaller ball. Officials are hoping that the changes would make the sport more spectacular due to raising the pace of gameplay and the number of goals.

The changes might be closer than we think, as some trial private matches have been played with the above mentioned changes under the monitoring of Fina officials. One location of the few trial matches have been Budapest, Hungary.

Though the initiations seem to be good, as beach water polo has been using these rules for many years, probably they are not the best changes to be made. This idea was reflected by the whole water polo community leaving the Hungarians and Italians enraged. On the first hand, as many players complained, the introduction of smaller balls would increase the ball speed by 15-20 km/h which might cause injuries. Also the smaller playing area and fewer players would inevitably result in more wrestling in the water which can possibly culminate into brutality.

Smaller playing area can be a good idea if one considers that the majority of the time in a water polo match is spent with the teams swimming back and forth. Also the smaller ball can be a good change if they can solve the stiffness issue to reduce the possibility of injuries, but a change like that in the ball might not be feasible. Reducing the player number from 7 to 6 would kill the basics of water polo and would trash the tradition of water polo strategy, which is clearly an outcome that nobody wants. It would create a totally new sport.

In my personal opinion, having spent sixteen years in waterpolo I think if officials really wanted a worthy change they should reduce the effect of the referees on overall image of the game. Greg McFadden, the head coach of the Australian ladies’ national team, argued that the rules are so complex that referees cannot make the right decisions from the sides of the pool. Nowadays a water polo match mainly consists of two men whistling every now and then to stop the gameflow. I believe that physical contact should be abolished to finally stop wrestling and fighting. A referee should only pause gameflow when somebody is excluded from the game due to physical contact. That could make the gameflow smoother, the game could speed up and more spectacular moments could arise, as a tactical arrangement would not be stopped at every third minute by a referee.

Words by Christian Keszthelyi for XpatLoop.com

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    Photo: vlv.hu