Series that have had an incorrectly called interference affecting the outcome of a series will be replayed, according to a new point in the ISA rulebook.

ISA Director General Robert Fasulo sent a communication to member nations last Wednesday notifying them of a few additions and edits to the rulebook, this one mentioned being one of the most striking.

Here's what the new rule details:

“-If one or all surfers in a heat have their position mathematically decided, even in the case of an incorrect decision, these surfers will not surf again. Re-surfing will only occur with surfers who have their result changed.

-If simply correcting the priority interference is enough to correct the situation, without any possible changes, no further surfing will occur.

-If a resurf takes place, it must start from the point in the heat at which the official error was committed. The incorrect sanction will be corrected, priority will be given as it should be, the scores prior to that point will be maintained and a resurf between the surfers involved will take place using the time remaining on the clock.

The system for proving an incorrect call by the country is not determined, nor is it determined with the surfers “involved” if it refers to all those in the series or those who participated in the erroneous interference call.

Although, for this addition there is a precedent that could explain what was stated in the previous paragraph:  At last year's ISA Junior World Championships held in Japan, in a series between the American Noah Hill, the Australian Samson Coulter, the Moroccan Zouhir Sélyann and the Panamanian Agustín Cedeño, the series (which until now appears without a score on the official tournament website) ended with Cedeño second and Coulter third.

Following the event that the Panamanians celebrated, Australia filed several complaints that led to the series being rescheduled the following day, reversing the result, leaving Cedeño out of the event and putting the Australian in the next round.

It will probably be like this from now on.

The spirit of the first points detailed in the rule seems to try to avoid resurfing as much as possible, trying to prevent an event from becoming a resurfing festival, affecting the calendars. This is how it says that if it is recognized that an interference was wrongly called and when the result is reversed, things are left as they should be, there will be no resurfing. This would take place in cases such as the one exemplified in which Australia understood that the course of the series changed because an interference was wrongly called.

Other detailed changes concern the obligations of ISA-recognized organizations, and this is a fundamental point because it requires anti-doping in the World Surf League in the way that the ISA applies it, which is, at least apparently (because the WSL is not very open on this point), stricter.

The details of Olympic membership also appear as necessary legalities, such as changing the size of teams due to gender equality and the aforementioned priority.

The new rule is expected to bring with it a nightmare of replays and complaints about wrongly set priorities. It will function as a kind of VAR on every movement made in the surfers' paddle.