Hi,
Personaly, I voted "no", but...
IF a standard has to be decided, IMHO the only need for that should be for the creation of a miniature football federation, with a national (or world) championship title :
In Texas, New York, or even London or Paris, federation players/coaches will play exactly the same ruleset and material. See the table hockey championship : same rules, figs and hockey table (STIGA) in Moscow, Finland, Italy, Canada, USA, etc...
For me it's the only need for standards : same rules, same figures, same boards (or at least same measurements), so you can organize standard conferences and finally a national title. Like the real sport thing. It joins the famous debate "Is MF a real sport ?" . If it is, scale standards can be an improvement.
But for the bedroom/neighborhood MFer/ coach, or even the "simple" miniature football modeller, the standard concept is a way meaningless.
I'm in figures and wargaming world since I was a teenager (now I'm 30), the well known standards were 15mm, 25mm, 28mm, 54mm.
I had in my hands a lot of figures from different companies : 17mm instead of true 15mm, some real 25mm, some 28mm called real 25mm scale, some 30 or even 35mm sold under the 28mm appellation, etc...
I even saw some figures of the same brand, with different scales. And I saw different names for the same scale too : "normal body", "heroic body", etc, etc...
Well, did that diversisty hurted the hobby ? I don't think so. in fact, major companies were built on their own style or scale. Now, for example these days 25mm is considered as an "old school" scale. Believe it or not, some new companies on the market come back with true 25mm new products : simply to make the diference with their business opponents.
Is it an issue for the customer ? I don't think so : because everyone can make his choice. Imagine perhaps one day, a new company or engineer will come with a 15mm miniature football, or even a crasiest new product !
Anyway, to conclude and make it simple (not always easy to translate thoughts in written english) :
Scale standards in a competitive sport purpose : YES
Scale standards for everyone, and/or not for a competitive sport purpose : NO
Dimitri
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