HANDBALL: Julian Drew
SOUTH AFRICA’S first international handball competition, and reputedly the biggest women’s international club handball tournament ever staged, reached a thrilling climax last weekend when Djordje Petrov from Macedonia met surprise finalists Douka from Greece in Johannesburg.
With the mere mention of the word Macedonia currently inducing a severe case of the jitters among Greek politicians, their northern neighbours seemed to have the same effect on the Greek handball players who were unceremoniously trounced 32 -17.
The local Cosmos team, comprised entirely of young Yugoslavian recruits under the tutelage of capricious coach Risto Buha, accomplished some fine results in their competitive baptism as a team. They eventually finished sixth in the tournament from a field of 13 of the world’s top club sides.
Buha’s passionate and somewhat unruly behaviour on the bench provided plenty of fireworks to complement the thrills and spills on the court. His constant remonstrations with match officials and torrid tirades against his own players when they came to the bench, reducing some to tears, saw him collect several warnings and a yellow card during the tournament.
The tournament was almost marred by the potentially damaging invitation given to a team from the former Yugoslavia. That country, and anyone who represents it, has been banned from international competition by both the International Olympic Committee and the International Handball Federation (IHF).
Although the tournament was organised by the Cosmos Handball Club, Gunter Schaefer, chairman of the South African Handball Federation (SAHF), was told by the IHF when discussing the tournament, that under no circumstances should a Yugoslavian team be invited to take part.
The SAHF was therefore put in an awkward situation when Radnicki Handball Club from Belgrade turned up at the tournament. After discussion with the IHF it was decided that since the tournament was a private initiative and not an IHF tournament, Radnicki could play under a different name and with no reference to Yugoslavia on their apparel.
Unfortunately a Yugoslav flag kept finding its way into the display of flags of those nations taking part and the IHF received complaints from German and Portuguese teams that Radnecki had the Yugoslav flag on their shirts.
Frank Birkefeld, the IHF’s executive director, told the Weekly Mail & Guardian from Switzerland that although all Yugoslavian teams were officially suspended, the IHF had agreed to Radnicki taking part under the conditions outlined above.
“We have, however, had complaints from some of the teams competing in South Africa and we will await a full report on what took place before deciding what action to take,” he said.
The IHF congress is taking place in Holland this week and South Africa’s representative may well have some tricky explaining to do. “We will get more closely involved with the organisation if another tournament is held,” said Schaefer. “I don’t think anything will come of this but if we are instructed to ban Cosmos then we will have no hesitation in doing so.”
On a more positive note, one of the spin offs from the tournament was the development work that some of the teams undertook while they were here. Spartak Kiev of the Ukraine and Kruban Krasnodar from Russia gave a clinic in Dobsonville and staged an exhibition game at Wits University yesterday.