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PSA trial Tri-Ref
System
The
Professional Squash Association is trialling a new
three-referee system at this week's ISS Canary Wharf Classic
5-star event in
London.
TRI–REF is a wireless electronic
three-man refereeing system which has been developed by Michael
Castleton, of Security Foiling Ltd, in conjunction with the PSA
over the past eight months, in a bid to solve the problem of
player–referee confrontation and inconsistency.
 "The
prototype model will allow three referees to make a decision
independently and without the knowledge of their fellow arbiters,"
explained PSA board director Tony Hands. "When the three
decisions have been entered into the keypads, the head referee will
see the resulting decision on his keypad and will announce it to the
players and audience.
"If
the testing proves to be successful, then the stage two of
development will be to expand the software to integrate the tri ref
with laptops, scoreboards and live streaming. It could open up the
possibility of being able to add sound and graphics to a pending
decision," added Hands.
"The
PSA are very driven to attaining Olympic status for our sport and it
was noted that one view of the Olympic committee was that Squash is
a sport with too much vocal confrontation between referees and
players. This new Tri Ref system
potentially could remove this view, as the players do not have a
direct source on which to focus their disagreement."
Hands also stated that PSA World Tour players will benefit in that
it should improve the decision process and will remove any possible
influence amongst the three referees as they will make their own
decision independently and privately without prior knowledge as to
the thoughts of the others.
"We
hope that this will reduce the level of inconsistency.
"It
will also allow the WSF refereeing panel to be able to assess their
referees from outside the court and could save cost and expense on
international assessments. This may enable the potential growth in
numbers of higher level qualified referees," added Hands.
"We
are grateful to Graham Waters, head of the WSF refereeing panel, and
Canary Wharf Classic tournament referee Linda Davie, both of whom
have been very helpful in their support for this new system -
knowing that it could potentially throw up unforeseen problems. But
they acknowledge that the system needs to be tested by qualified
referees in competition to be able to properly monitor its affects
on the game.
"Furthermore, event promoters Eventis have been very accommodating
in allowing us to test the tri ref prototype at the Canary Wharf
event from the first round onwards and we hope that the players and
the referees all find this a valuable system in taking the
professional game to the next level as a spectator sport."
PSA
would like to thank Michael Castleton for his own personal
investment, both financially and in the great deal of time spent, in
making sure the system reached all the specifications required to
operate a fully functional electronic refereeing system. |
Talking
of Prince, that man of many talents and long-time Prince man
Peter Nicol launched another new venture here,
Faster
than a speeding bullet ...
