The IBJJF Euros in Lisbon ended last Saturday, the 25th, and on the same day an event opened the way for controversy. The open class final, a match with Marcos Carrozzino and Marcus ‘Scooby’, ended up being annulled due to the disqualification of both finalists for lack of combativeness. The referee’s decision was questioned, as is usual in drastic decisions like this, and there was much discussion about the interpretation of the rules.
For the black-belt, entrepreneur, Jiu-Jitsu professor and competitor – he was one of the champions at the 2025 Euros – there are some measures that can be adopted to improve the work of referees. Especially in longer tournaments, as the European Championship lasted nine days, it would be interesting to reserve a group of referees to work exclusively on the adult black-belt matches. The finals take place on the last day of the tournament, when the judges are already exhausted.
In Bruno Bastos’ opinion, rules should be better understood in accordance with the practice of the sport
Another welcome initiative would be to assign the most experienced referees who are fully familiar with the rule in practice to Grand Slam competitions. Former competitors would be ideal to understand the reality of a fight and apply the rule satisfactorily.
“The judges apply the rules based on what the rules actually are, but they don’t understand Jiu-Jitsu. Sometimes they don’t understand what’s happening during a position. In my opinion, people who have been competitors can better understand some fight situations. I don’t like it when both athletes are punished, but you can clearly see that it was one of the athletes who didn’t let the fight continue, but both are punished. It’s interpretative. The judge thinks that both are stalling.”.
The arrival of VAR has reduced human errors in Jiu-Jitsu competitions
The rules in Jiu-Jitsu are structurally interpretative and the arrival of VAR helped to eliminate the margin of human error. This is unquestionable. Another issue raised by Bruno concerns the interpretation, endorsed by more than one referee, including video assistance, in the big decisions of a huge championship, such as the Euros.
“Rules are rules, but you also need to use common sense. Again, it’s about interpretation. For me, they weren’t ‘not fighting’, nothing that justifies four penalties. But that’s my view. You have the central referee, the two lateral referees and the two VAR referees. So, the professors are tied up. How can you disagree with five people? As someone who takes a course on rules and has worked with referees, I saw the rules being applied, but I didn’t see a fight that warranted four penalties.”.
With the disqualification of Carrozzino and ‘Scooby’, Luis ‘Cantareira’ and Leo Ferreira, third placed in the absolute, were promoted to the final dispute. The one who came out in first place in the new configuration of the open class was ‘Cantareira’, who secured double gold at the Euros in Lisbon.
