The first bowl game to be played on foreign soil is among 19 postseason football contests that the NCAA Special Events Committee has recommended for certification next season.

If the recommendations are approved by the NCAA Council, the first Haka Bowl will pit the third-place finisher in the Pacific-10 Conference against an at-large opponent in Auckland, New Zealand.

The game is scheduled for 8 p.m. December 26 (Eastern time and date) and will be broadcast by ESPN. In Auckland, the calendar will read December 27 when the game kicks off at 50,000-seat Eden Park.

The Pacific-10 plans to alternate its third- and fifth-place finishers between the Haka Bowl and the Norwest Bank Sun Bowl in future years.

In addition to the Haka Bowl, the 1996-97 certified bowls include the Builders Square Alamo Bowl, Carquest Bowl, CompUSA Florida Citrus Bowl, Copper Bowl, Cotton Bowl Classic, FedEx Orange Bowl, Jeep Eagle Aloha Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Nokia Sugar Bowl, Norwest Bank Sun Bowl, Outback Bowl, Peach Bowl, Plymouth Holiday Bowl, Poulan/Weed Eater Independence Bowl, Rose Bowl, St. Jude Liberty Bowl, Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and Toyota Gator Bowl.

NCAA member institutions cannot participate in postseason football competitions that are not certified. The certification process ensures that bowls meet specific standards in terms of officiating, insurance, distribution of funds and other aspects of the event.

In other actions, the Special Events Committee, which met April 23-25, approved a form for sponsoring agencies to submit as part of the process for certifying an event's exemption from the participating institutions' maximum number of contests or dates of competition.

The form will help the committee process contest-exemption requests, a responsibility it assumed with the passage of 1996 NCAA Convention Proposal No. 69. The legislation also expanded the committee's membership to include representatives of Divisions I-AA and I-AAA.

In April, the Council requested that the committee defer action on contest exemptions until the three Division I-AA and three Division I-AAA representatives are appointed. The Administrative Committee likely will confirm the appointments later this month.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Special Events Committee
April 23-25/Tempe, Arizona

* Voted to require conferences to send the committee an evaluation of their officiating crews' performance in bowl games. In addition, the committee agreed to revise the institutional game report so that participating teams may identify any rules that they believed were not enforced properly during the game. The actions came in response to an NCAA Football Rules Committee request for greater accountability on the part of bowl crews.

* Reaffirmed that the standby official must come from the conference that assigns the officiating crew.

* Agreed to recommend that bowls receive a deduction from gross receipts if they distribute to each team 95 to 125 awards of the maximum allowable value ($300). The deduction could range from $57,000 for 95 awards per team to $75,000 for 125 per team and would be approved by the committee at its January meeting. The committee took the action to enhance the value of awards given to student-athletes by sponsoring agencies. Despite instituting a $25,000 deduction last year, the committee continued to be concerned about the value and quality of awards given to bowl participants.

* Voted to ask bowl sponsors to provide the committee with information on their television formats to determine if a consistent format can be developed to reduce game times. The committee expressed its understanding that contracts already are in place for future years, but it would like to study ways that adjustments in formats could be made within existing contracts.

* Voted to request that bowl sponsors provide the committee with their seating plans to determine the availability of priority seating for participating institutions. A subcommittee will review the seating plans of all bowls and work with the Football Bowl Association to develop more consistent priority seating locations. Any recommendations will be approved for 1997-98.

* Supported the NCAA Communications Committee's recommendation that game management provide designated areas of adequate size for postgame interviews.

* Discussed discrepancies between Postseason Football Handbook policies and bowl alliance contracts. The committee agreed that the handbook should take precedence and noted that the handbook often sets minimum standards that may be exceeded.

* Agreed that both teams should be treated equally at a bowl site (for example, both should receive the same number and type of courtesy cars).

* Reaffirmed that a letter of credit valued at $1.5 million (or the minimum payout to participating teams, if that amount is greater) is required for recertification.

* Agreed to remind participating institutions that they are obligated to inform the sponsoring agency how many individuals to expect at official social functions.

* Agreed to encourage bowl sponsors to work more closely with participating institutions' licensing programs, particularly in alliance bowls, to ensure that enforcement and infringement issues are discussed and agreed upon.