Ignacio Fernandez Llorente: A gentleman's game

A Gentlemen's Game

The regulation of Polo begins with a few words from Pedro F. Christophersen that is worth remembering: “Polo has its etiquette: it is an art that is practiced and a science that is cultivated for almost all of life; it is a tournament, a duel, a fight that demands skill, strategy and courage; but it is also a test of temperament and honour, which while offering the opportunity to show itself, a man creates the obligation to behave like a gentleman. Keep all this in mind and persist with it in improving the game, remembering, as we have said, and now we repeat, that the quality that characterises every player who progresses and stands out is none other than, in essence, that his persevering effort to achieve The perfection".

It is necessary to instil so that the polo continues being a sport of gentlemen, that fair play continues as it is said these days.

There are certain acts that show chivalry / fair play: • When a player in the middle of the game abandons the play to reach his opponent's mallet. • When a player requests to be charged a corner against (penalty 6) • When a player shoots towards the goal the ball goes very high and close to a goalpost and recognises that it is not a goal. • When he avoids hitting his opponent with his mallet or his horse throughout the match. • When he avoids or tries to avoid crashing an opponent who commits a foul.

• When he asks to stop the game when he sees an opponent beaten, injured or with any inconvenience. • When in a throw in a team does not participate (passive throw in) since before the throw in the opponent had the ball and for some reason the game was stopped. • When a player acknowledges that the ball was gone outside, and does not continue playing. • • Unfortunately I have seen cases that one player recriminates the other for recognising a corner, to players who claim goal when the ball clearly went outside, players who pass by the side of a player without his mallet and do not stop to lift it. For cases like these, despite the fact that the regulation does not penalise it, it would be good to start penalising those players with a yellow card.

Currently, passive throw in is being used for cases in which the game is stopped and a player had possession, but since it is not in the regulations there are teams that refuse to do so.

It would be good if the umpire decides to apply the passive throw in cases that he deems appropriate. Including the case that a player clearly with possession of the ball, a foul is charged and the third man (referee) decides "NO FOUL" to make a passive throw in where the team that had the ball continues with the ball.