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Planet Field Hockey

This article was sent to PlanetFieldHockey - the writer requested anonymity.

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Men....can they ever be allowed to umpire Full Women's Internationals...and will Women ever umpire Full Men's Internationals?


It is an age-old subject, which occasionally gets brought back to the forefront of discussion over and over again, yet very rarely do the people in the know take any notice. It is a personal favourite of mine, since i am a young male, umpiring quite a high level of Women's hockey, but however, i must now make the transition to Men's hockey in order to pursue my umpiring career, and my ultimate dream of umpiring at the World Cup or Olympic Games.

Having taken up umpiring at the tender young age of 14, i thought it would be a good laugh, and nothing more really. I did it to prove that i was better than all those schollteachers who umpired our inter-school matches! But now, a few years down the line, with so many avenues opening up for me, i am beginning to wonder what my next step should be.

In all other facets of daily life, excluding Men from "Women's activities" and vice-versa would be regarded as sexual discrimination.....so does this not amount to exactly the same? Is it really a case for the European Court of Human Rights???!!!!!!

I think probably not, but however, FIH reallly needs to get moving with the times now, and recognise that some men are very capable of umpiring the women's game very well, and some women are very capable of umpiring the men's game to equally high standards.

At the end of the day, i think that if a particular umpire is good enough to umpire the game that is being put in front of them, then there should be no barrier in place to prevent them from doing this. Whether they are male or female, i think that they should be allowed to umpire to a standard that they are good enough to deal with.

I think it is also disconcerting for many umpires with the amount of politics going on behind the scenes in our sport. Why should FIH decide to appoint "one umpire from this small European nation" and "two from this poor South American Nation" etc......

All appointments should be made solely on ability, and anyone who is not good enough to umpire games at that level should not be appointed to International competitions because they are from some poor obscure nation in the bottom right hand corner of the world.

I welcome your comments, and hope this article does draw some good heallthy attention to it from FIH.

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