Handball To Be Ousted From Olympics Over Scandals?

This concrete threat means that the IOC will be requesting many compromises for things to take a better turn, Gobac said.

Referees are a problem with any sport, mostly because they are those who “hand out justice”. Justice is in the eye of the beholder, thus conflicts occur from the world go. However, referees are under control in most sports and they are not allowed to have authorisations above authorisations. This is not the case with handball; a referee has everything here, which was evident in most cases and is the reason why the alluring sport is facing to be ousted from the 2012 Olympic Games in London!

Situation is alarmingand highly concerning

Numerous scandals regarding handball referees have finally surfaced up and made the top of the International Olympic Committee to react. Following a meeting in Denver, it threatened to drop the attractive game from the London Olympics` programme.

- We have to be prepared for possible consequences. We found out that Gerhard Heiberg of the IOC executive board asked for handball to be dropped from the Olympic Games` programme – Frank Bohmann, president of the German Handball Association said, adding that the situation requires caution and gravity so that such a shocking thing does not actually happen.

The situation is alarming and highly worrying, but handball will not be dropped from the OG, this is certain. Heads of the International Handball Federation would have to see this case as a reprimand before expulsion.

It turned out that we were right about the infamous prostitutes as well, it tuned out we were right for saying days before the final that the Danish would rob us. We pointed out the mistakes, but we are small, they just knocked us about. Well, now, we were right, the truth was told. No matter how painful it may be, they finally had to accept it.

Zoran Gobac

- Dropping handball from the OG will not happen. There are threats in such sports, because the referees have big authorisations, figure skating is an example, as it has many scandals, water polo also. At times, the audience or the players cannot understand the criteria and it is high time for Moustafa [president of the IHF] to react – president of the Croatian Olympic Committee Zlatko Matesa told us.

The best examples were the actions and calls of referees during the World Handball Championship played this January in Croatia. The Danish referees were mentioned so many tomes after what happened, that many thought typical Croatian paranoia was in question. However, this time was different. The most powerful man of Croatian handball Zoran Gobac victoriously confirmed this.

“We spoke, they would not listen”

- I warned about this two years ago, I kept telling all the media. This is happening because of the way handball is headed. This concrete threat means that the IOC will be requesting many compromises for things to take a better turn. And they will – Zoran Gobac is positive, who thinks the situation is lovable, because people in Croatian handball are finally not seen as circus acts.

He pointed out that many people mocked then when they spoke of the Danish referees, but suddenly, they started believing when the scandals broke out, scandals including Kiel and many other clubs and the referees took thousands and thousands of euros as graft.

- It turned out that we were right about the infamous prostitutes as well, it tuned out we were right for saying days before the final that the Danish would rob us. We pointed out the mistakes, but we are small, they just knocked us about. Well, now, we were right, the truth was told. No matter how painful it may be, they finally had to accept it – Zoran Gobac said.

The most powerful man of Croatian handball is glad that the top of Croatian handball land sports believes handball will surely not loose its Olympic sport status at the 2012 London Games, but he also believes that many alterations are necessary for the threat not to come true in 2016.