ITTF/WTT problems reported from players

[NextLevel]

Bad comparison, but it proves the point exactly.

FIFA World Cup is once every 4 years. Continental Cups (UEFA European Championships for example) as well, so that is one international championship every 2 years.

The calendars are the same for every player in the World, so planning is easy.

None of it is mandatory. Your team calls you up. If you refuse, your national association might get angry, but that's it. FIFA is not even involved. They just recieve a entry list of players from the national Association.

The differences:

ITTF already had a yearly World Cup. That is what was in 'the contract'. It wasnt mandatory, just like in football.

ITTF WTT then added 5-20 events per year. Mandatory. Money and ranking penalties if you refuse.

Its more like ITTF is your employer and then said: I know you signed up for one world cup per year, but now there are 20 events per year and you need to travel to all of them. No income for you buddy, only costs. Yes FIFA added a dumb Nations League as well, but players do get paid there.

Do you think people from many developing countries can afford to fly over the world? That is why the racism card is pulled. If you are poor, you will never get a good ranking. That is always the case, but much worse now. The point penalties alone will keep your ranking down. Olympic entries are based on these points I believe (might be wrong), so I guess also say goodbye to ever being an Olympian.

The employer comparison is even worse, because employers pay their workers, like Tony said. It's work for pay. In this construction there is only work, no pay. Instead there's punishment. Either go, lose money on travel and accommodation and missed income, or don't go and lose money on penalties and penalty ranking points. Awesome.

FIFA had to step in a long time ago to make it harder for clubs to keep players from national assignments. But the biggest difference is that there is a lot of money in football, it is part of the reason America keeps working on establishing it. Table tennis is a broke sport and the culture of automatic funding is not there.

Quadri knows that if they hurt his ranking (which they are doing with the zero point penalties), his performance bonuses in many of his contracts will take a massive hit as well as his attractiveness to many sponsors. So a better balance has to be found somewhere.

The issue in part is that organization capture is a big deal everywhere. WTT came out of nowhere (not quite nowhere, but you need to be a follower of ITTF history and politics and maybe know the players to understand the evolution). The WTT is hoping that public funding of sports is enough to give them income. This model only works for the short term and in non-market economies, in the long term, it is unsustainable. A serious individual would look for a more sustainable even if scaled back growth and expense model for table tennis, even if it was to make hardbat tournaments more lucrative etc. Without Chinese backing, the current model would die easily. Even with it, it isn't entirely clear it has a future. But in the short term, the people who are running things get *some money* that they might not get doing something else and get to visit countries and make great connections.

 

[Johnniedarko]

There's the qualifiers for the world cup, the qualifiers for the euro, the world cup, the euro, friendly matches that your national association sets up..... total is around 10-20 matches per year.
And football is a team sport so sometimes they travel to their home country, train together for a few days, then travel to the match, then back to home country and back to their league wherever that is.
This is especially hard for players who are not european and travel larger distances.

lots of money, they travel in private jets, so its not that hard.

and 10-20 matches per year, we talking TT events for over 10-20 per year (if we calculate 5 to 10 matches per event, the number is greater)

Exactly, 10-20 matches that only take one day, vs. 10-20 tournaments that last 3 to 7 days each.

Not to forget: none of it is mandatory. None of it forces pregnant and sick players to repetively supply medical files or else get fined. In fact, the only non-sick exemption made is for 'maternity leave'. So paternity leave is not a thing? Despite many European countries leveling paternity leave with maternity leave, but okay, screw kids. You can only opt out of the WTT if you also forgo the world championship and the Olympics.

The mandatory clause and the point and money penalties are the real issues. The other issues, such as the busy schedule for players and the scheduling issues with national leagues, wouldn't even be issues if the WTT wasn't made mandatory.

 

[Johnniedarko]

FIFA had to step in a long time ago to make it harder for clubs to keep players from national assignments. But the biggest difference is that there is a lot of money in football, it is part of the reason America keeps working on establishing it. Table tennis is a broke sport and the culture of automatic funding is not there.

I don't know about this, and how long ago you are talking, but that's good. Sporters are workers and have rights.
It likely involved the introduction of payment, which was recently increased:

Fifa agrees to pay clubs extra £119m to release players for men’s World Cup

Clubs will have a greater say in the football calendar while the deal could make the European Super League less likely to happen

www.theguardian.com

WTT on the otherhand; more demands than FIFA, less (zero) pay. If it was only for a few years to rake in the sponsors and get the ball rolling, to lift TT up, sure, that's an idea. But it seems a permanent idea.

 

[the-don]

Exactly, 10-20 matches that only take one day, vs. 10-20 tournaments that last 3 to 7 days each.

Not to forget: none of it is mandatory. None of it forces pregnant and sick players to repetively supply medical files or else get fined. In fact, the only non-sick exemption made is for 'maternity leave'. So paternity leave is not a thing? Despite many European countries leveling paternity leave with maternity leave, but okay, screw kids. You can only opt out of the WTT if you also forgo the world championship and the Olympics.

The mandatory clause and the point and money penalties are the real issues. The other issues, such as the busy schedule for players and the scheduling issues with national leagues, wouldn't even be issues if the WTT wasn't made mandatory.

Football players arrive several days before the match, live together in a hotel, train together.....they also have the pressure from the fans.

TT player arrives, plays his matches and leaves.....it's almost like a tourist.
Also zero pressure, if you lose nobody criticizes you.

 

[NextLevel]

Football players arrive several days before the match, live together in a hotel, train together.....they also have the pressure from the fans.

TT player arrives, plays his marches and leaves.....it's almost like a tourist.
Also zero pressure, if you lose nobody criticizes you.

This is borderline trolling, do you actually play table tennis or know any pros?

 

[kindof99]

More people and more media are talking about this. It is a good thing that players speak out about the situation. WTT has been living in their own comfortable cave for a long time.

 

[Metaxa]

Now imagine 1 month to go, WTT move the date by 3 days.
Will you rebook your hotel, airtickets to just say, yes sir, you do your change of date, and I will do mine too, because I'm a good boy.

Mmmmm, as a professional, you may have some advantages in hotel or plane bookings. I'm sure no one will have to bear the costs themselves if something has to be cancelled.

 

[Metaxa]

More people and more media are talking about this. It is a good thing that players speak out about the situation. WTT has been living in their own comfortable cave for a long time.

It is not only a problem in table tennis. In darts, too, for example, the calendar is packed, organisers want to attract the best players and have obligations to their sponsors. Now that darts is becoming wildly popular outside the UK too, these guys have to fly halfway across Europe to maintain their rankings. In darts, then, a lot more money is involved than in table tennis.

 

[NextLevel]

Mmmmm, as a professional, you may have some advantages in hotel or plane bookings. I'm sure no one will have to bear the costs themselves if something has to be cancelled.

Professional is a vague term, it refers to Quadri as well as to Fan Zhendong as well as to Simon Gauzy as well as Timo Boll or Ibrahim Diaw or Luka Mladenovic. And trust me, Quadri is the one who bears the costs when things get moved because he has to plan out how to feed his family and make his money in advance. It's not as straightforward as you think it is - betting on yourself never is.

 

[backspacer]

I was shocked when Iba said you have to pay a daily participation fee. I thought it was a one-off fee. Sure, you get more prize money the further you get, but it's a joke on anything below the Star Contender tier and the WTT hotels look expensive too. He also said the budget he used to have for the ITTF Tour only covers half the tournaments now with WTT.

 

[Metaxa]

Professional is a vague term, it refers to Quadri as well as to Fan Zhendong as well as to Simon Gauzy as well as Timo Boll or Ibrahim Diaw or Luka Mladenovic. And trust me, Quadri is the one who bears the costs when things get moved because he has to plan out how to feed his family and make his money in advance. It's not as straightforward as you think it is - betting on yourself never is.

I have had to make hotel and plane bookings for other professionals for years. Very often I had to make last-minute changes/adjustments because the sector did not allow me to make reservations 24 hours in advance. Never had any problems adjusting it. It's just who you want to deal with. Even now for myself privately, I will always see that we book a flight or hotel that you can change or cancel for free at all times.

 

[Metaxa]

I was shocked when Iba said you have to pay a daily participation fee. I thought it was a one-off fee. Sure, you get more prize money the further you get, but it's a joke on anything below the Star Contender tier and the WTT hotels look expensive too. He also said the budget he used to have for the ITTF Tour only covers half the tournaments now with WTT.

Don't they have a free choice of hotel then?

 

[NextLevel]

I have had to make hotel and plane bookings for other professionals for years. Very often I had to make last-minute changes/adjustments because the sector did not allow me to make reservations 24 hours in advance. Never had any problems adjusting it. It's just who you want to deal with. Even now for myself privately, I will always see that we book a flight or hotel that you can change or cancel for free at all times.

Where I live, you have to pay more for refundable tickets in order to be able to change or cancel. And last minute changes closer to the deadline often incur higher costs based on demand closer to the date. Maybe our experiences in the US are different from your experiences in Greece.

 

[NextLevel]

Don't they have a free choice of hotel then?

No, there are event-approved hotels.

 

[Metaxa]

No, there are event-approved hotels.

Lol, WTT-mafia at its best.
Okay, but does that also mean they are obliged to take them?

 

[Johnniedarko]

Football players arrive several days before the match, live together in a hotel, train together.....they also have the pressure from the fans.

TT player arrives, plays his matches and leaves.....it's almost like a tourist.
Also zero pressure, if you lose nobody criticizes you.

Any athlete who takes his sport seriously, would love to show up a few days early, to get acclimated to the timezone, temperature and rest from the trip. The TT players we're talking about have dedicated their childhood and adulthood to this sport, so I'm going to assume that they take their sport seriously. If they don't show up days early to do this, it's because they can't afford to (time or moneywise), not because they wouldn't want to.

Pressure of fans is irrelevant. But even so, I think staying with your football team in a hotel, training for 2 hours and then playing FIFA for the rest of the day, while knowing you'll get paid, is arguably more relaxing than stepping off the plane and immediately play matches that count.

Anyway, this is getting off topic. We're talking about TT athletes being forced to play mandatory matches, triggered by Aruna going public with his protest against this. My point was that this is unfair, which you agree to, and I made a comparison with football only to show that even "money hungry" Fifa isn't nearly as bad as ITTF/WTT.

 

[the-don]

Any athlete who takes his sport seriously, would love to show up a few days early, to get acclimated to the timezone, temperature and rest from the trip. The TT players we're talking about have dedicated their childhood and adulthood to this sport, so I'm going to assume that they take their sport seriously. If they don't show up days early to do this, it's because they can't afford to (time or moneywise), not because they wouldn't want to.

Pressure of fans is irrelevant. But even so, I think staying with your football team in a hotel, training for 2 hours and then playing FIFA for the rest of the day, while knowing you'll get paid, is arguably more relaxing than stepping off the plane and immediately play matches that count.

Anyway, this is getting off topic. We're talking about TT athletes being forced to play mandatory matches, triggered by Aruna going public with his protest against this. My point was that this is unfair, which you agree to, and I made a comparison with football only to show that even "money hungry" Fifa isn't nearly as bad as ITTF/WTT.

Well it's the conditions they set.
If a player doesn't like it he can quit the national team and never play ittf tournament again.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

I was told by a player today that they have some weird payout quota, like you have to win a minimum prize money from certain events to be paid out, or you need to have prize money from say at least 3 contender events. They have threshholds for payouts in place.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Mmmmm, as a professional, you may have some advantages in hotel or plane bookings. I'm sure no one will have to bear the costs themselves if something has to be cancelled.

then you need to watch video clips surfaced on TTD 1 to 2 years ago talking about the cost of changing plane tickets. Some times even the whole ticket is down the drain.

why is it that professionals has advantages?
they not footballers. They are everyday people like us, either book cheap flights themselves or self book online themselves.
At most, via 3rd parties

btw, hotel now is via WTT (more expense), so hotel is out of the picture, but airplane ticket, the player is on their own to get there.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I was shocked when Iba said you have to pay a daily participation fee. I thought it was a one-off fee. Sure, you get more prize money the further you get, but it's a joke on anything below the Star Contender tier and the WTT hotels look expensive too. He also said the budget he used to have for the ITTF Tour only covers half the tournaments now with WTT.

in ITTF's world tour/pro tour days, the costs for entry/ optional partner hotel lodging is on the prospectus and is public info.
now the prospectus is hidden to the public (require MA logon).
the participation fee includes shuttle to and from airport, the hotel, entry fees, meals etc.
It costs more than before as many pros has pointed out. So it isn't really a Special per se.