There was more disappointment for those who
woke up early hoping to watch the World Championships live video
feed on the internet as the links once again offered no more
than a blank screen with no explanation for the failure.
The IKF site makes some mention of the problem
suggesting that that have received many complaints from within
the Korfball world and state they have report the 'problem's' to
the the KOC, presumably the organisers of the event, and go on
to say that the problem is receiving the highest level of
attention within the KOC and that as of today they are unable to
inform us whether the problems have been resolved.
It appears that the IKF decision to allow the World
Championships as a 'test event' by the Kaohsiung World Games
Organising Committe has backfired somewhat in many regards, the
unfortunate lack of video transmission of an event that happens
every four years being one of them.
The KOC's attitude seems neatly summed up with the mention on
one of its sites that the World Youth Korfball Championships is
'being staged as part of a preview
competition for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung next July'.
Surely the World Championships is being staged for the good of
the sport of Korfball and because it is an important event in
the international Korfball calendar not as some sideshow in
Taiwan's World Games preparation.
The IKF have apparently made complaints to the the Sports
minister and other officials but sadly at this stage there seems
little hope that this problem will be resolved.
Comments on the Korfball TV forum have suggested that software
being used is not up to the job and it is great shame Korfball
misses out on some rare exposure of top level games outside of
the Netherlands.
What is also surprising is that a number of offers to transmit
video from the tournament have been turned down by the IKF due
to 'rights' problems, yet presumably bearing in mind such right
must surely be under the control of the IKF, someone must have
given them away.
What will be of greater concern to the Korfball world is the
fact that this has resulted in the loss of an opportunity for
matches to be transmitted by ESPN and hopefully this situation
will be the subject of an urgent publicised review by the IKF at
the conclusion of this tournament.
That leaves those not lucky enough to be able to travel to
Taiwan and watch the game left watching a blank computer screen
each morning and having to make do with the odd photo and the
limited IKF match reports and KorfballNet's news reporting and
many will quite rightly make their disappointment felt by
continuing to complain to the IKF.
The IKF can of course be contacted by email at
office@ikf.org by telephone
at
+31 343499655
