Please allow me to refer to a decision by the ASA protest board, which in my opinion amounts to a gross miscarriage of sporting justice.

In a recent under 20 waterpolo game – Sliema vs Sirens – the Sirens goalkeeper handled the goalpost during a clear goal-scoring situation. This infringement is covered by FINA waterpolo rule 22, which states that, besides a penalty throw being awarded against the offending team “for a goalkeeper or any other defending player to pull over the goalpost completely with the object of preventing a probable goal”, he offending player shall also be excluded from the remainder of the game with substitution (rule 22.5).

Referee Peter Balzan’s decision was to award a penalty but not to exclude the player, as required by the rules of the game.

The table officials (and a number of spectators too) pointed out that the referee’s decision constituted a technical error but he insisted that his decision was correct.

The referee even threatened to expel the Sliema coach if he persisted in his protests.

To further compound his error, the referee instructed the ‘table’ to penalise the Sirens keeper with two personal faults (a penalty and an exclusion for 20 seconds) but he did not physically exclude the keeper.

Conclusion: the keeper remained in the game, saved the penalty and the game finished in a draw.

It is pertinent to point out that, had FINA rule 22.5 been applied in this case, the goalkeeper would have had to be substituted by a player who could only attempt to save the penalty with one hand.

In between sessions, the referee was handed a printout of rule 22.5 but he still continued (seemingly unperturbed) with the game.

At the end of the game, the referee phoned some authority (not the ASA) who confirmed that he had committed a technical error. The referee advised the table of this and stated that Sliema had the option to lodge a protest within 24 hours.

Sliema lodged a protest in the correct form with all the required requisites and asked for a remedy as contemplated in the terms of reference of the ASA protest board.

But surprise, surprise, even before hearing Sliema’s verbal submissions (although the written submissions covered every detail), the board (assisted by ASA vice president, waterpolo Alan Bonello) indicated that the protest would not be upheld, quoting a local competition rule requiring technical errors to be pointed out at the time they occurred, failing which protests would not be entertained.

The official decision reflected this reasoning and the result was to stand but, in my opinion, the decision is flawed and scandalous in that: it totally ignored the fact that the technical error was lodged in accordance with the same local competition rule quoted by the board; the quoted competition rule goes totally against one of the recourses provided for by the ASA protest board; the quoted competition rule is in conflict with FINA regulations.

I trust that both the referee and ASA have not assumed the powers to legislate new rules in direct confrontation with FINA.

Finally, leaving technicalities aside and keeping in mind that the encounter was an Age Group one, is this the sort of message the ASA would like to transmit?