According to IRNA; The selection of the national karate team for the Asian Championships in Uzbekistan and the Games of the Islamic countries was held on Wednesday last week, and as expected, it was accompanied by fringes, including protests by several players against the refereeing decisions.
While the federation and the refereeing committee decided to give each player the right to use two protest cards during a fight to reduce refereeing errors, we still saw protests.
The same frequent use of the film review system caused the competition process to be prolonged, but this was done in order not to deprive the athlete of his rights. However, it seems that this method was not without its faults, and there were still refereeing errors despite the use of this system.
Apart from this, the behavior of the three karatekas was a bit strange because they protested hard after the announcement of the result and were eventually expelled from the Shikak competitions.
It seems that the process of protesting against the refereeing decisions has been key for some time now, and the behavior of some karatekas in cyberspace is a starting point for this. Some people who could not bring a significant position and medal despite participating in various competitions are targeted by the head coach of the national team and some officials of the federation in order to narrow the field for the officials and maybe reach the national team again.
This behavior has spread to younger people as well, and now we see that most karatekas want to blame their defeat on others, especially the referees and then the technical staff.
Perhaps if in the past, when these behaviors were instigated by some people, it was dealt with decisively, we would not see its repetition by others now.
It seems that some people are trying to put pressure on the technical staff of the senior national team, especially the head coach of the national team, Shahram Heravi, in which the duties of the federation officials are very important. If the federation’s decision-makers want to continue working with Heravi, they need to make a firm decision with the protesting athletes (about their misconduct) to put an end to the margins, otherwise they will have to make their views public.
Karate is a successful discipline in different eras and should not be marginalized by insiders. Young athletes need to work hard to get their due on the tatami and know that cyberspace is not a good place to show technical ability.
The achievements of Iranian men’s karate in the last few years are undeniable, which have been achieved with unity and peace, and now we have to build a barrier with appropriate decisions.