Sports and terminology
A tournament picks its sport when it is created, under Sport / discipline. That one choice drives the words the app uses, the default length of a match, how the standings table is scored and ranked, how many officials a slot needs, and which sanctions a referee can record.
It is not a cosmetic relabel. A taekwondo organizer should never be shown football's Teams, Pitches and Goals — and should never see a draw offered on a result that cannot be drawn.
The sports
| Sport | One competitor is | Plays on a | Scores | A fixture is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Football | Team | Pitch | Goals | Match |
| Futsal | Team | Pitch | Goals | Match |
| Handball | Team | Court | Goals | Match |
| Basketball | Team | Court | Points | Match |
| Volleyball | Team | Court | Sets | Match |
| Ice hockey | Team | Rink | Goals | Game |
| Padel (pairs) | Pair | Court | Sets | Match |
| Padel (club teams) | Team | Court | Matches | Tie |
| Taekwondo | Athlete | Mat | Points | Bout |
| Judo | Athlete | Mat | Points | Contest |
| Individual sport (generic) | Competitor | Court | Points | Match |
| Team sport (generic) | Team | Court | Points | Match |
The two generic presets are the fallback when your sport is not on the list. They behave sensibly — a generic team sport scores like football with a points-based table, a generic individual sport ranks by wins — and you can run a complete tournament on either.
Ice hockey also renames kickoff to puck drop; taekwondo labels the two sides Blue (Chong) and Red (Hong), judo White and Blue, padel pairs Pair 1 and Pair 2. An individual sport calls a competitor's affiliation a Club, except judo, which says Dojo.
What else the sport decides
How long a match books. Every sport carries a default: 20 minutes for football, 30 for handball, 35 for futsal, 45 for volleyball, 60 for padel pairs, 65 for ice hockey, 80 for basketball, 90 for a padel club tie, 6 for a taekwondo bout, 5 for a judo contest. These are booking lengths, not game clocks — the slot a fixture occupies. Categories inherit the default and you can override it per category.
The gap between one match and the next is separate, and tournament-wide: Settings → Schedule & format → Break between matches. Ice hockey is the case to watch — a resurfacing flood takes 8–12 minutes and the default break is 5, so raise it by hand.
How many officials a slot needs. One for football, futsal takes two, handball two, basketball two, volleyball one, and ice hockey three under the IIHF system (a referee plus two linesmen). This is what the referee coverage view counts a gap against.
How the table is scored and ranked. See standings and tiebreakers — the rules differ more between sports than anything else on this page.
How a level knockout is settled. Three shapes:
- A shootout. Football, futsal, handball and ice hockey record a separate tiebreak tally next to the regulation score. A level final score is legal because the shootout columns decide it.
- Play on. Basketball, volleyball's deciding set, taekwondo's golden point and judo's golden score all continue until someone leads, so the recorded score is always decisive and there is nothing extra to enter.
- The format already prevents it. A best-of-three padel match ends 2–0 or 2–1. It cannot end level, and FairGame refuses a score that says otherwise.
Which sanctions exist. Football and futsal have yellow and red cards; handball adds the 2-minute suspension and the blue card; basketball records fouls; volleyball warns, penalises, expels and disqualifies; ice hockey carries the full IIHF ladder from a minor to a match penalty; judo and taekwondo record none. See rosters and discipline.
Changing the sport
The sport belongs to the tournament and is chosen when you create it. Pick it before you build anything — it seeds the default match length your categories inherit and the sanction list your referees will use, and a tournament already full of fixtures does not re-derive those.
Taekwondo and judo start on a single-elimination bracket rather than groups, because that is how a weight-and-age division is actually run. You can still use groups — see choosing a format — but the default is the one you want most of the time.