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| The challenge rule has been of great help for referees to verify if they have made the right calls or not. FIBA (file photo) |
MANILA--FIBA is now considering incorporating a modification to the challenge rule by some leagues into its sanctioned games.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said in an online press conference on Monday that they could give coaches who successfully challenged a wrong call by the referees an incentive that may be of great use especially come crunch time.
"There is consideration for that. We are now evaluating how the rule was applied in the first essentially year and a half of its implementation," Zagklis said.
Filipino leagues both in the pro and amateur ranks have modified their challenge rules, allowing the coaches to have one extra challenge option if they are successful in disputing a call.
The MPBL even added a rule that if the challenge is deemed "inconclusive", the referees will stick with their original call but will not charge a coach with a lost challenge, basically meaning the coach can still call a maximum of two challenges later in the game.
In FIBA games, though, coaches strictly only have one challenge all game long, in which an unsuccessful challenge will mean they lose a timeout while a successful challenge will not reflect on the remaining ceasefires they have.
While adopting the one-plus-one rule would be a cool idea, Zagklis also acknowledged that the challenge modification in the club ranks has been slowing down the game more than usual.
"We are receiving a lot of feedback, especially from fans, who are extremely important to us, that the game is slowing down too much. In some of our leagues that allow more than what is the traditional FIBA one challenge rule, we have seen even more complaints that the game is taking more than two hours," Zagklis further said.
He then said that aside from looking at the one-plus-one option, FIBA is not keen on adding more tweaks to the challenge rule.
"If you ask my personal opinion, I think the game has already slowed down a lot, we're getting, if not on the border, we are very close to that, so I don't think we will expand the rule for challenges too much, but whether we give you the one that you won back or not, I think this is something that our technical commission will evaluate," Zagklis said.
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