Waterpolo has often been prone to changes in the rules of the game.
Since early days it has undergone several permutations in the way it is played until along the years changes in the laws assumed the proportion of a metamorphosis.
This was aimed at making waterpolo less static, increasingly faster, more productive in terms of goals and more pleasant as a spectator sport.
After the initial changes dating back to at least eight or nine decades, the rules have been subjected to more alterations.
Until about the middle of last century players were not allowed to move before a free-throw was taken.
Exclusions lasted until a goal was scored while goalkeepers could not pass the ball beyond half-pitch.
These restrictions and others rendered the game dull.
In the 1968 Olympics penalties were awarded after a number of fouls. In fact, in the Games’ final between Yugoslavia and Hungary the Slavs beat the Magyars with most of their goals coming from penalties.
In 1970 five fouls meant that the offender had to leave for good and after ten ordinary fouls a penalty was awarded.
It transpired that these rules were scrapped because they were regarded as impractical.
However, after more changes in recent decades the general opinion was that the game became faster and more spectacular.
After the latest tweaking by FINA as part of a wider set of test rules applied this year during the Junior Men’s World Championship and the Men’s World League there will now be three new rules which were recommended by the FINA Bureau members.
These new regulations will be put under the microscope during the 2016 World Men’s Youth Championship in Podgorica, Montenegro, and the World Women’s Youth Championship in Auckland, New Zealand.
The three new rules are:
• Reduction in possession time from 30 to 25 seconds due to faster transition from defence to attack.
• Reduction in exclusion time from 20 to 15 seconds intended to make waterpolo faster.
• The teams to be of 11 players with two reserves that may be used in other games of the tournament.
If these rules are eventually adopted there will be another chapter in the laws of waterpolo thus making the game less physical and more open to fluctuating fortunes, with the result that there will be an increase in goals, its end product.
More flowing fare and dynamism should result in a greater degree of excitement.
The last world junior championship earlier this year turned out to be fruitful for testing the initial set of new rules.
These included six players in the water, a smaller ball used in women’s competitions and a 25-metre pitch. In a local tournament last summer Malta had a taste of these new regulations.
Next year, the testing ground in Podgorica will be between August 26 and September 3 while that in the Women’s Youth Championship is between December 5 and 11.