OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Does ITTF have any kind of charitable fund?
If yes I would send to it 1USD for every player from world TOP100 who cares about low friction limit for LP's if you send 50cents for every player who doesn't care about it at all. [/quote]

Yes, we do have something called "Solidarity Fund". But you are not offering a fair deal. Let's make the deal fair as follows:

- I will pay $1 for each player in the world who cares about low friction

- You will pay 50c for each player in the world that does NOT care about low friction.

What do you say?

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Adham Sharara

This: "it's the National Associations that decide everything in the ITTF because they ARE the ITTF" is not correct imho.

E. g. The Board of Directors consist of less, than 60 people and there are 207 national associations. It is clear, that less, than 1/3 of national associations are represented in the Board of Directors. Second, the national associations elect just the members of the Board of Directors, not the decisions of the Board of Directors.

If e. g. the Board of Directors makes an illegal decision, than those members of the Board of Directors are responsible for it, who voted for the decision. Not the national associations, which just elected those people.

Guys, I'm afraid you are both not quite right here.

Mynamenotbob, just imagine: one table for three players A, B and C. First A plays vs B, than B vs C, than C vs A and so on, until they are thrown out by the club owner. Even if they play 1 (one) point matches, each player plays 2/3 of time.

Adham, although average playing time in clubs has not changed, shorter matches are not good for those, who would like to learn from playing against better players. As a coach you probably can understand that.

Second, not in clubs, but at tournaments and particularly teams competitions the average playing time has decreased because of shorter games. That means, that 11 point game rule has effectively reduced competitive table tennis. Hardly an achievement to be proud of.

I might be missing Adham's point here, but if the ETTA can decide which of the ITTF rules it applies outside of ITTF sanctioned events - which means in England the ETTA can decide under what rules the vast majority of club and local league players play, then it doesn't matter what the ITTF decide, or who decides it or how they are elected.

There are some battles that are worth fighting, others are lost. Forget the ITTF and Adham (sorry Adham!) and lobby your own National Associations to accept or reject the inclusion of those ITTF rules which you feel should or shouldn't be imposed on lower level players in your own countries. It's clear to me from this thread Adham isn't either willing or in a position to fight for the changes being proposed by most people in this thread and he's just been re-elected for another 4 years - congratulations by the way Adham. In my opinion from reading this thread and others, getting the ITTF directly to change is a lost cause, so can we move on and concentrate on taking the fight to the national associations instead - after all, they're the ones we pay our membership fees directly to and have a vote in. If you have no confidence in your own National Associations, this is hardly the fault of Adham or the ITTF - take action against them, not the ITTF and make your own national associations accountable to you. Something which may well be difficult but after reading Adham's replies seems a whole lot easier than getting the ITTF to change.

Out of interest Adham, you have said you are in favour of players using what ever they want (rubber wise). I'm assuming you made this clear at your committee meetings. That means others voted you down. Who were they, or more specifically which National Associations?

That's assuming there's three people per table. At my club, if you lose you're off the table and have to get back into line again, maybe waiting three or four matches. I'd prefer the longer matches (especially if I lose).

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Debater, I like your idea about battles, but at the same time there were some battles that were won, although considered not worth fighting by some people.

It is not so simple with National Associations not accepting ITTF rules. E. g. 40mm ball. Just imagine your highest league playing 38mm ball. That would mean, your national players would play 38 mm ball on the national level and 40mm ball on the international level. Not a nice thing.

Or a "frictionless" national player, who has to change his rubber when playing on the international level.

OK, than we can accept the ITTF rules just for the highest league, where national players play. Problems again. Players who play in the 2 league one year and in the 1 league another year would have to adjust and readjust.

You may be right about "forgetting Adham" because he does not make rules, but forgetting ITTF would not bring any success imho.

I have a simple solution for your problem: just don't lose!

No, it was a little joke. If you play 1 match and wait 4 matches, you play 20% of time (on an average) regardless of how many points matches you play.

Smartguy, I'll be honest. I'm being a selfish club / local league official and player when I speak. I would never have the problems you describe, nor do I think would anyone currently playing in our league. The up and coming youngsters also don't use FLP's because of it's limitations so in the future, use of FLP's by the top players won't be an issue. And thanks to the ETTA, once they get around to making an announcement, our local league problems will soon be sorted - assuming all the leagues get their head out of the sand and listen to the ETTA, which isn't guaranteed. What I've found in our local league is that the good players start out in our league and then move on and upwards and don't come back - the only issue would be for those who play county level and in our league this is few and far between.

You are right though, if a player did still turn out for local leagues in England and played in higher level play then there will be problems. That said, whilst I can find Adham's democracy comments "frustrating", I think he does have a point. Hassle your National Associations - even try and stand for election to them and work from within. Either that or refuse to pay your membership fees. If Associations won't listen to your voice maybe they will listen to your money. Everything would take time, but I think it would be better time spent trying to change within the national association system than trying from outside to convince Adham to change the ITTF.

Ironically, in our league the main issue hasn't been around FLP's, it's been the banning of speed glue or in particular tuners and boosters and even these mutterings of discontent were dying out as SGE rubbers improved. Unfortunately as an offshoot of the removal of the word authorised from rule 2.4.7 I can see this starting up again as local league players start to argue if you can play with FLP's, they want to use tuners or boosters (and maybe speed glue).

It seems that old adage, "you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time" fits this situation perfectly and as Rules and Research secretary for my local league, it's been doing my ..... head in!

ed. one of the reasons it's been doing my head in, and which hasn't really been discussed is that prior to the removal of the word "authorised" from rule 2.4.7, quite a few of our members were unknowingly in breach of the laws of table tennis. I'm not referring to FLP players but to all those members who seldom change their rubbers (and their are a lot in our league) and who's inverted rubbers were no longer on the authorised list and certainly don't play like they did when new. How do you tell these players they can't play unless they go out and buy new rubbers which are authorised. Absolute nightmare, and seems to ignore the fact many local league players aren't equipment junkies, play for the fun of it and use rubbers they've always used out of habit not out of a desire to gain an unfair advantage.

Hey, welcome back Smartguy. I was wondering when you would step in and argue.
So, when the government of England makes a decision, it is NOT an English decision? because not all of England has decided? Don't you elect your representatives to decide on your behalf?
The AGM (member national associations) ELECTS the Board of Directors and gives it its power to deal with Chapters 3, 4 and 5 of the ITTF Handbook. The national associations deal with Chapters 1 and 2 directly because those are the most important parts of the federation's regulations (Constitution and Rules of the Game). The Board of Directors is a geographical representation (continental quota for balance) of "individuals", not associations, representing ALL associations, just like a Board of Directors of any corporation represents the interests of the shareholders (members in this case). And by the way, a group of 60 people is very large and very representative.

How could the Board make an "illegal" decision? The Board makes its decisions according to the rules and according to the power vested in it. It cannot make an illegal decision. This is a serious organization my friend, not a children playground.

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Adham Sharara

Although I'm an Engineer, and was tops in Math, I don't get it. How does the shorter games reduce the total playing time if the total playing time in the club is the same. Just play more games to fill the time ! Instead of playing 2 matches each, play three. As long as you have the same amount of time, surely you will play the same amount of time regardless of the points in a game, just fill the playing time.

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Adham Sharara

EXACTLY. Bravo, you said it right ! Actually if you guys read the previous 29 pages of this thread, all this was discussed before and most of you reached the same conclusion.

No one voted me down, there was no proposition to allow players to use whatever they want. In the ITTF the member associations are content with the rules as they are. But everyone inside the ITTF knows my view, but most do not agree with it.

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Adham Sharara

On the other hand, you are waiting less in line ! Right? Look at the positive side. At the end, if you have the same number of players and the same amount of time, then mathematically, regardless of the length of the games, you will play exactly the same amount of time.

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Adham Sharara

The best is to forget about changing rules that have been widely accepted and used for many years now. The 40mm ball has been in use for 9 years, get over it, it will never change back to 38mm. The 11-point game is in for almost 8 years now !! Get used to it already.

How about discussing something fresh instead of the same old same old that will not change in any case?

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Adham Sharara

Exactly !! A voice of reason. Thank you.

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Adham Sharara

Chapter 2 of the ITTF Handbook defines the general rules of TT. Authorization of rubbers is for international events. This is why this adjustment was made. The "authorized" will now appear in Chapter 3. But each national Association can decide whether they wish to adopt the ITTF's authorization list for racket coverings or not. So your league may choose to adopt the authorization list, or choose not to do so. This gives more latitude at the national levels and below.

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Adham Sharara