USA Ultimate responds to the Cincinnati/Huck Finn situation.
March 25, 2015 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 14 comments
Despite some calls online for USA Ultimate to take action against Cincinnati for dropping out of Huck Finn this weekend, the governing body says that they are unlikely to sanction Cincinnati as there are no rules against withdrawing from a tournament.
USA Ultimate Marketing and Communications Director Andy Lee sent this statement to Ultiworld this afternoon:
It’s very disappointing and unfortunate that any team would withdraw from a tournament at the last minute, especially if the primary reason is an attempt to possibly protect its ranking. Event organizers – most of whom are volunteers – put an enormous amount of work into assembling the best possible field of teams and constructing a schedule, so any change at this stage presents an unnecessary challenge to them. It also can negatively impact the competitive experience of all the other participating teams.
Unlike the ability to void a team’s results for artificially manipulating the outcome of games by things like intentionally losing or forfeiture, there is currently nothing in our guidelines that specifically addresses an eleventh-hour withdrawal such as this, so it’s unlikely that any action can or will be taken in relation to this specific situation. Every season, during the Competition Working Group summit, USA Ultimate’s College Working Group reviews the rankings and bid allocation system, along with all of our guidelines, and makes modifications based on lots of input. This specific situation will almost surely be discussed at the next meeting and could lead to some improvements in how those rankings and bids are administered, but that won’t happen until later this year, and with a much larger group of people.
