Iran Protests Unfair Number of European Referees at Intl. Wrestling Contests

Iran’s representative to the United World Wrestling’s Presiding Board Rasoul Khadem has protested against the unfair number of European referees in international competitions.

“There were a total of 14 gold medalists from Asia and Europe, and 8 from America in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, but 55 out of the 99 top referees who can judge in international and Olympic competitions are from Europe, 17 from Asia and the rest from other continents,” said Khadem while referring to the World Wrestling Championships in Paris.

“This inequality amounts to gross discrimination against referees from different continents as European referees’ share is three times more than that that of Asia and five times higher than the Americas’ share,” said Khadem, who is also the president of Iran’s wrestling federation.

“This inequality will create the speculation that referees judge in favour of European wrestlers and will result in problems in competitions,” he said.

He then said non-European members of the UWW’s Presiding Board have welcomed Iran’s proposal regarding the formation of a referees’ commission comprising representatives from different continents, namely two representatives from Asia, Europe, and the Americas each, and two from Oceania and Africa, plus three referees introduced by the UWW in order to create a fair atmosphere for refereeship in international wrestling contests.

IFP Editorial Staff

The IFP Editorial Staff is composed of dozens of skilled journalists, news-writers, and analysts whose works are edited and published by experienced editors specialized in Iran News. The editor of each IFP Service is responsible for the report published by the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website, and can be contacted through the ways mentioned in the "IFP Editorial Staff" section.