WFDF SOTG Committee approves revisions to the Spirit Scoring System

In Official Communication, Press Release * Official Communication by WFDF

WFDF is pleased to announce that the Spirit of the Game (SOTG) Sub-Committee as well as the Ultimate Committee have approved a revision to the Spirit Scoring System as a result of the review that was begun last year.  The change to the System involves the removal of the fifth question about self-reflection (“How was our spirit compared to the other team?”) and replaces it with a new Spirit category that was felt to be missing, communication. The five scoring categories are now:  (1) Rules knowledge, (2) Fouls and body contact, (3) Fair-mindedness, (4) Positive attitude, and (5) Communication.

“We continue to evolve our approach towards monitoring spirit of the game as we gain experience,” explained SOTG Sub-Committee Chair and WFDF Board member Patrick van der Valk.  “In addition to the revised scoring system, the SOTG Committee also created a document that gives examples for each spirit scoring category. This document should help teams understand what good Spirit is and standardize scoring. Since the SOTG Committee has members from many of the top federations, we believe that this is a very positive step towards a general agreement on what Spirit is and how it can be rated.”

The Committee has also designed a scoring sheet that enables teams to score their own team with the five categories mentioned. This sheet is optional and Tournament Directors and/or teams can use this if they want, although it is not meant for these self-ratings to influence the tournament scores and rankings.

“WFDF is committed to maintain a very high level of the Spirit of the Game during WFDF events and we are convinced that this revised scoring system will help to preserve a good spirit throughout our biggest and most important tournaments,” added WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. “We thank Patrick and the committee members for their thoughtfulness and ongoing efforts to improve this important system.”

For WFDF, the revised system will be introduced during this year’s World Junior Ultimate Championships and World Ultimate Club Championships which are being held in Lecco, Italy, in July and August 2014.

Member Associations can receive the source files upon request to translate the documents for their use.

The new materials can be found at under the following links:

1.) 4 Game SOTG Scoring Sheet
2.) 4 Game SOTG Self Scoring Sheet
3.) Scoring system examples