Inside Volley Board

This World League, although highly intriguing has also numbers of ethical issues or dilemmas,
which are interesting to think of:

1) Should the host team play with his N-th squad, because it is directly qualified?

Argentina played awfully this competition, because they are guaranteed a place in the top 6 teams. They got only 3 pts and no victory.
This is unethical for number of reasons:

a) Shows disrespect for other teams - we don't care about the games with them, therefore let's put the hopeless ones on the field

b) Shows disrespect for the whole competition - there is no reason to put an effort when the place is guaranteed, so this round is useless. Why bother, when other teams should suffer instead of us?

c) It destroys competition between second teams in different groups - playing with the hopeless gives almost all pts to the teams of your group, whereas the other teams like Egypt or France are giving their best in their groups. This way from the group of the host a best second team can easily be "lifted" by the hosts disregards for the games. This is abuse of the fairness of the game and destroys the competition between the best second candidates.

Proposed solution - give the hosts place in final six, but if they don't go to semifinals, place them according their intercontinental round ranking, in this case - 15th. This way they will play not to be disqualified for the next year.


2) Should a team be able to deliberately loose game to stop other team in different group from qualifying?

Anastazi place Italy in position of whore for the Serbian client only to stop Bulgaria and USA from qualifying.

This has number of negative impacts:

a) This hits the image of Italian coach - he is immoral guy, who can not be trusted, may be even corrupted?

b) This hits the image of the Team - they play to loose, this is disgusting (this is not true of course, but that's the way it looks)

c) This hits the image of the Country - Aa, Italy, land of corruption (this is false induction of course, but most people would make the association with the football scandals)

d) This decapitates worthy team, better than Serbia in this competition - all efforts of Bulgaria and USA are gone, Stanley Clayton, Matey Kazyiski can not participate in the final round which is big loss for the game (Serbia is without their big stars)

e) This hits on FIVB and FIVB World League authority - how can one trust the competition since it is allowed to cheat or even get payed to loose?

f) This decreases the profits of the good teams, which are denied from being in final round, and decreases FIVB profits from absence of stronger teams, which attract more viewers (especially for USA).

3) Is it fair to play "fair" against a team, when other team has tricked it unfairly and your "fairness" is helping for that?

Brazil played on 100% against Bulgaria with the best players. Dante didn't play because he was in bad shape in the first game, so Saatkamp. Bruno Resende played couple of times, risking trauma.
They drowned the floor in sweat against Bulgaria, in game with no significance for their ranking.

Is that fair, when they know that "fair play" allows Italy to decapitate Bulgaria and USA ? Or is it unfair? (I don't have an answer to that)

4) Are soft skills ethical during game?

I mean the Brazil technique of manipulation of the referees. I don't claim that it is a conscious strategy, but this great sensitivity towards referee's direction have negative impacts:

a) This decrease the referee's authority, because he should give yellow card right away from the first angry reaction and he is not, because this is Brazil.

b) Disrespect to referees is also disrespect to the rules of the game.

c) This makes the game more nervous and less pretty.

d) This cheapens Brazil efforts and titles in the eyes of the viewers - great champions do not yell at the referee like in oriental marketplace.
All that Giba has done for volleyball, all Resende has done for strategy in volleyball, looks smaller, when you see them jumping, pointing with fingers and screaming in rage. It is unethical and un-esthetically.

P.S. I understand that the players are more emotional and Resende is maniac in volleyball (that's why he is done so much, caring for every point), but this looks bad from outside and hurts the game in several different ways. Should Resende always stay unpunished for this? Should he be more tolerated than Prandi, who gets warning for the first reaction of such type, just because he is calm person and it is unusual for him?

5) How many interruptions of one game are too much?

Calling the boys to clean the floor, asking the referee to check the placement of the players, changing players, calling a timeout, arguing with the referee - all this sequentially and from 10 minutes only 5 are for game (for example).
A lot of coaches do that, but isn't it too much? Interrupting the game is part of the game, but when is too much and how should we take care for that?

I don't have answers for most of these questions, I hope we can seek them together