TMF's against non players?

[torre.hargett]

Via twitter: a non-player just got a TMF called against a team (Doublewide). Didn't know someone on the sideline heckling an observer could get a TMF...

explanation ?

[rodney8z]

From the observer manual:

VI – Player Misconduct

...

For the purposes of this system, “player” means any person on the roster of a team competing in
a particular tournament, as well as coaches, managers, trainers and others considered as partisans
for the team, including significant others, parents and fans.

[torre.hargett]

From the observer manual:

VI – Player Misconduct

...

For the purposes of this system, “player” means any person on the roster of a team competing in
a particular tournament, as well as coaches, managers, trainers and others considered as partisans
for the team, including significant others, parents and fans.

Thanks for the reply. Lots of people still have questions about what actually happened in this situation. Hopefully someone that was on the field (observer or DW player or both) will chime in?

[commitch]

i heard from the observer that issued the TMF that the fan was being vulgarly abusive towards the observers, so a TMF was issued. This is perfectly within the confines of the observer system (manual, what's taught at clinics, etc). While a game official definitely needs to have a thick skin when it comes to fans, there is a line to be crossed.

One coach at nationals this year did bring up the idea of "I wonder when it is we have the first team to have a fan put on the opposing team's jersey and berate the observers." It's a good point. Personally, I think the tournament staff should be removing the truly unruly fans (as opposed to the good natured hecklers) and the teams shouldn't be involved, at least at a tourney like nationals. I think the Riot/Backhoe finals in 2005 was part of creating the policy of teams being penalized when the Sockeye players crossed the line of good taste by miles in their heckling of Backhoe in their support of their fellow Seattle team.