Emilio Carrero sent 4 questions to Felipe Costa asking about IBJJF Referees, brackets, fair treatment and Metamoris, here is the result:
First, do you feel that people who are affiliated with teams should be allowed to referee IBJJF tournaments? why or why not? If not, what should they do instead to fix this?
It would be great if it was not, but is not the reality of an amateur sport like ours. The most important thing to do in my my opinion is to train properly the referees and pay them decently. None of this happens today.
2. Also how do you feel about how the brackets are drawn up for the major tournaments? Should leaders of teams decide the bracket matchups?
The brackets for lower belts is made by computer and for black belts is decided by the team leaders to avoid the top guys to face each other in the first rounds. I believe is fair, if it was made by computer, imagine Roger Gracie and Buchecha facing each other in the first round, while Rodolfo Viera waits as STAND BY.
So to avoid possibilites like this, they put the leaders to choose. Unfurtunatly there are leaders who have more influence than others and take advantage of a situation that should be a democratic decision to favour their own teams.
A good solution for that would be a certain kind of ranking and I heard IBJJF is working on it already.
3. Have you ever felt you or your team were not given fair treatment in a match for some reason?
Yes, of course I did, not once but many times.
4. Rener Gracie was a commentator for the Metamoris tournament even though his brother was competing and his family help promotes it. Do you think this is a conflict of interest?
I think Rener is a great communicator and I think is no problem that he comments when his brother fight. The one's listening have to be smart to have their own opinion too and not just accept as the final truth whatever they hear on TV (or internet).