Ignacio Fernandez Llorente Player Penalties I take advantage of these lines to offer my condolences to the families of those who died due to this pandemic that we are experiencing. In these difficult times for the world, I would like to reflect on justice. In the small world of polo, we are not all the same and I do not claim that we are all the same, and we are not equal before the law. One of the great difficulties in polo is getting players and teams, so sanctioning a player is not feasible, and the players and teams know it. There are teams that put pressure on everything and if they receive a sanction they withdraw their team from the tournament. There are players who have to be interested in continuing to spend at Polo (employers, club owners), and others: such as high handicaps, professionals who cannot lose a job, federation authorities, family members, etc. who are untouchable. I have had many experiences as a referee in different countries, countries where the player gives orders to the referee, countries where the player does not receive sanctions, countries where the sanction is given in the off season on purpose, countries where the player is sanctioned depending on who he is ... And what strikes me is the corruption within polo even in first world countries where justice is respected. And in most countries / clubs: the referee who sanctions, does not return anymore There are players who repeatedly have problems with all referees and have no
sanction, in many cases because the referee does not sanction him (to avoid conflicts in this small world, not to fill out score sheets, or because if there are sanctions it is a bad thing). But in reality the fault lies with the one who hires that player. There are very few patrons who have bad behaviour, and if there are any, it is because the professional led them to misbehave (imitation, this creates a climate on the polo field so that the patron reacts badly, they lose because of the referee, for what he has learned in years, because it becomes the normal thing to have bad behaviour) A light of hope is to meet patrons that, by contract, enforce that if their Pro receives sanctions (technical, yellow or red), they have a penalty such as they do not collect money, or change the Pro for the next game. Argentina has the advantage that if the player is penalised he is easily replaced (greater number of players), and the AAP is trying to manage the discipline better than ever, but there is a long way to go. Polo authorities are players or ex-players, and there are no referees or ex-referees. They only see the perspective of the players. Although a sanction in one country is a very small world, it does not prevent playing an unofficial tournament, or playing in the neighbouring country. But in the polo world we are far from being all equal before the law. I often ask myself, how many discourage injustice in polo? Meanwhile the show continues ...
