The refereeing system has enjoyed a rather dubious reputation for thousands of years. Masochists, or at least eccentrics, have been suspected of being behind this guild, whose passion is to be at ball level in a square and to be consistantly shown the bird. Anger and spit often come up against them when the men and, increasingly, the women in neutral Jersey try to control the game.
After all someone must be to blame for the third airball in a row.
However, the 1st easyCredit Isolation Basketball Championship is the most wondrous experience. One epiphany is particularly astonishing: referees are surprisingly ordinary people.
You can see this quite clearly from the corner of your eye when they suddenly stand next to you in the elevator. Even conversation is possible. And when Munich shows forth its magnificent blue sky for the weekend, they are by no means sitting in the sun with a whistle clenched between their lips. But rather with a beer. Also, the rumors that these impartial men and women would be protected on their fifth floor by an armed guard at their own request have proven to be false.
Only very rarely is the homely hotel harmony disturbed. As was recently the case with the training supervisor of the Hessian representative, who left the court early after a double technical foul. One would rather not be in the skin of the sinners. What do you do if you bump into this on-court tribunal in the elevator?! Or while on the way to dinner, which then turns out to be an embarrassing catwalk for penitents, because the referees dine at tables directly in front of the restaurant entrance. Absolution in the face of chicken thighs and kidney beans, in the best case.
But so far these are really rare exceptions in the Eldorado of "do-gooding". It is now even considered likely that the 1st easyCredit Isolation Basketball Championship will be nominated for the Amnesty Human Rights Award, for the exemplary integration of minorities.
ROOM 379 of Munich's Leonardo Royal Hotel is occupied by the media director of FC Bayern Basketball during the BBL final tournament.