Classic referees

Does anyone know why there seems to be a problem already getting enough referees? Is it pay? Treatment ? Scheduling ? A 96 game was short one AR yesterday and the crew used a volunteer parent, one from each team for a half. The problem was the center never told the second one he could not call penalties or offside. He waved down the penalty flags but allowed the offsides calls costing one team a goal in a 1-1 tie. The center evidently did not know the NTSSA rules concerning parent ARs. Not a good start to the season.

They all have their good days and bad days.

There is a shortage. I don't think pay is the issue. Perhaps the pool is smaller because they're tired of being berated by parents, but my guess for what happened yesterday at the 96 game is flu related.


For the record, the ref team at my bb's game was excellent. Perfect? Probably not. No one at that game was, self included.

4 world cups wrote:I agree, the quality of officiating has been TERRIBLE in 2 of our 3 games.
It can alter the outcome of certain games, completely unacceptable at this level.

Never has this been more evident than in the U14 (Odyssey vs East Texas Spirit) game Saturday 9/26. Totally unacceptable. Parents were used to call lines (violation of NTX rules?). The "center" moved slower than a glacier & the other AR paid more attention to the game played on the field behind him.

I think its the temperature. It's really hard work in this heat. I could see most people not wanting to say this, but I blame the heat. I think with cooler temperatures the pay will start looking better. If I was in better shape and had better vision and hearing, I would love to ref. It would beat a summer of roofing or air conditioning installations.
As far as the angry parents, I will strive to keep my mouth shut even though 3000 dollars later the outcomes of games are sometimes determined by the refs. I do think the refs can improve on keeping it easier for them as well. They can walk away from the angry coach, player, or parent. Give them that heat of the moment of stupidity. I still see too many refs moving quickly to a 16-17 year old player to get in their face to confront them. It doesn't take much blood pressure to ease a card out of a pocket. Also, they don't have to react to everything. These games are way too hot to be doing this much exercise under high emotional levels.

One more thing. Every referee should watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE0pwJ5PMDg
and learn the words. When someone starts yelling at them, they should either think or say softly to themself,
"La La La La, La La La La, La La La La, Luh La Luh La La La"
It might work

proudpoppa wrote:

4 world cups wrote:I agree, the quality of officiating has been TERRIBLE in 2 of our 3 games.
It can alter the outcome of certain games, completely unacceptable at this level.

Never has this been more evident than in the U14 (Odyssey vs East Texas Spirit) game Saturday 9/26. Totally unacceptable. Parents were used to call lines (violation of NTX rules?). The "center" moved slower than a glacier & the other AR paid more attention to the game played on the field behind him.

No, it is not a violation of NTX rules. Club linesmen are allowed. They are there only to indicate when the ball is over the touch line. They are never allowed to indicate fouls or offside.
Funny that some parents say that the refs are the worst ever. Most refs will tell you that the parents are getting worse every year...and it bleeds over to their kids. Maybe if parents realized that it is highly unlikely that little johnny is going to be getting a soccer scholarship they could enjoy the game more and not get so worked up.
Another interesting note....parents complain constantly, but very very few coaches bring it to the board's attention, even though it's an anonymous process and the ref never would find out. Maybe they don't blame the refs for the losses.

Very valid points indeed. It is very hard for even those of us who feel that way to be quiet when you see your kid go for a header and get punched in the face by the keeper who missed the ball, no call. When you see a deliberate foul that is with oput a doubt a yellow but the ref decides to talk to the player instead. the player then walks away form the ref while he is still talking and there is no card. I am not going to get loud win I think we may loose but when I think kids are going to get hurt because of lazy officiating.

my2cents wrote:Very valid points indeed. It is very hard for even those of us who feel that way to be quiet when you see your kid go for a header and get punched in the face by the keeper who missed the ball, no call. When you see a deliberate foul that is with oput a doubt a yellow but the ref decides to talk to the player instead. the player then walks away form the ref while he is still talking and there is no card. I am not going to get loud win I think we may loose but when I think kids are going to get hurt because of lazy officiating.

There are two things I strive for when I ref...keeping the kids safe and being consistent. Within that framework, I let many fouls slide for a couple of reasons...they are either trifling or they have little or no outcome on the play. The older the kids, the more you want to let them play. Ask any coach and they they will tell you that they want the whistle blown as little as possible in order to keep the flow of the game...again, all within the 2 parameters of safety and consistency.

How about the principal of enforcing the rules of the game?

homer999 wrote:How about the principal of enforcing the rules of the game?

Actually, they're Laws of the Game. And that's the easy part.

I'm with Happy Feet. Safe and consistent.

Do refs play a part in outcomes? Sure.
- What about the EPL ref who let the game run on at least 2 minutes past what was estimated? Just happened to be enough time for United to win the game... http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=678648&sec=england&cc=5901
- I read on another site that a study concluded that refs seemingly prefer teams in red. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/17-08/st_3smart
- What about the ref who is tired of being berated by concerned spectators who want you to call the "high kick" ... until we get robots, human emotion is going to play a part (refs, parents, players, coaches included).

Do we need quality referees? Absolutely. CL has many that are very good. For those that also could and would do a good job, here's a link to the NTX program. http://www.ntxsoccer.org/pages/refereeprogram.aspx

We had recently an AR who came after the game and told us how happy he is that we "kicked the other teams ..." because the coach, his players and parents were complaining all game long.
In the same tournament we played a mainly hispanic team and one of the players didn't like the call and said something in spanish, the ref understood and gave the boy a lecture in Spanish. Five minutes later I made a comment in German and he tourned around and spoke in German to me. Needless to say that I was very quite during the game.
Both referees were excellent from my point of view consistant and let the game go on as long as it was safe.

Good to hear; although, the AR should keep those thoughts to himself. He may have been as fair as could be, but that comment could give the perception that he wasn't.

As far as time management goes, I'm curious if anyone has ever seen this. We have a player red carded for a foul during a goal scoring opportunity (I'm not sure I agreed with it). It took maybe four to five minutes to figure out what had happened. The AR who made the call didn't know the number of the player so the Center and AR had to figure it out. Then they told one of our players to leave the field. Our coaches asked for an explanation. Maybe at the end of five minutes max the ref starts the game and tells our team that we will have 25 MINUTES of stoppage. It's 90+ degrees. We are a man down and he thinks we need to play an extra 25 minutes. We already subbed out a few of our starters so they are done. The game started at 12:00 and ended at 2:00.
With 25 minutes of stoppage and a man down, you can't help but think that there is just a little bit of pulling for the other team. It's ashame that as a high school coach, I am starting to expect more biased referees than in out of town games with home town refs. The referees are way too involved in the outcome of too many games. A discussion on "the spirit of the game" and whether or not contact between players is significant would be very much appreciated. I am seeing too many little bumps called and then a player gets shoved off the ball from behind or slide tackled from behind and no call. We had a player get taken out after he left the field while trying to keep a ball in. Another player slides him from behind while off the field and the linesman says "It happens" when asked for a call.
I am just not seeing any consistency as to what constitutes a foul or a caution.

Two out of our first three games have had some of worst officiating that I have seen, since playing classic. The two games had very biased refs with poor calls all the way around. We still won the games, but the officiating was very sub par. From both the center and AR.
Are they being forced to use refs that normally would not be used, due to the flu epidemic? Or maybe we have just had good luck in years past, to get exceptional officiating. In either case I have noticed a substantial drop in quality.

Any body else notice a similar trend?

I would say inconsistency is the biggest problem we've seen this season. One game we have an excellent officiating crew, the next game we don't. May be the flu epidemic, may be due to experienced refs quitting, etc., who knows? I know we shouldn't expect perfection but as stated above consistency and safety should be the goal.

I'm just curious how much communicating and discussion the referees receive during the season. We moved from a city where the recreational association had weekly referee meetings and they talked about various issues. Not everyone attended, but most did.
My youngest son, just became a referee and hasn't had a day yet to ref, but we have already received three emails from the assignor where he is explaining to the referees about mistakes that the referees have made during the week. He has also encouraged them to get out their rules and review them before the games.
In the Classic League we had a referee deny a goal that we had on a PK. We should have retaken the kick but he gave it to the other team. He allowed them a quick restart while we were heading back to midfield and celebrating. Needless to say, it was confusing.
Some of the referees seem to want to stay in denial in terms of the quality of officiating. I will accept "we are human; we can't see everything; we can't be everywhere at once; sometimes our view is better than yours; and it's amazing how differently you see the game when you do not have a kid playing". All of those staements are true. But, when you complain about an obvious error, you are sometimes met with an arrogance of "we are the referees, you can not question us".
As far as it being pointed out that it could be the parents causing the referee numbers to dwindle, if that's the case then the referees need to enforce the rules for unruly spectators. I really think that we just need to get more people to become referees. I also think that the rec leagues need to have zero tolerance towards unruly parents so that these kids will continue officiating.
This is not a short term solution, but we must continue to support our referee program. Again taking care of these young referees is vital. When my son was fourteen, he had a parent threaten to meet him in the parking lot after the game. This kind of stupidity can not be tolerated.
I believe that the sidelines of the Classic League should display a level of class and knowledge of the game that is several notches above other fields. But I also expect more from the officials as well.

I read an idea on here awhile back. Instead of or in addition to have parents do a stint of ARing as part of volunteer duty. They will not AR a team that is within the club, age group or division. Reffing is a tough job and it is something I would certainly not want to do but good refs are needed to make good games happen.

mrclean wrote:As far as time management goes, I'm curious if anyone has ever seen this. We have a player red carded for a foul during a goal scoring opportunity (I'm not sure I agreed with it). It took maybe four to five minutes to figure out what had happened. The AR who made the call didn't know the number of the player so the Center and AR had to figure it out. Then they told one of our players to leave the field. Our coaches asked for an explanation. Maybe at the end of five minutes max the ref starts the game and tells our team that we will have 25 MINUTES of stoppage. It's 90+ degrees. We are a man down and he thinks we need to play an extra 25 minutes. We already subbed out a few of our starters so they are done. The game started at 12:00 and ended at 2:00.
With 25 minutes of stoppage and a man down, you can't help but think that there is just a little bit of pulling for the other team. It's ashame that as a high school coach, I am starting to expect more biased referees than in out of town games with home town refs. The referees are way too involved in the outcome of too many games. A discussion on "the spirit of the game" and whether or not contact between players is significant would be very much appreciated. I am seeing too many little bumps called and then a player gets shoved off the ball from behind or slide tackled from behind and no call. We had a player get taken out after he left the field while trying to keep a ball in. Another player slides him from behind while off the field and the linesman says "It happens" when asked for a call.
I am just not seeing any consistency as to what constitutes a foul or a caution.

I'm normally not a ref basher, but this year - I've definitely got a foot on the bandwagon. I've seen a total push from behind in a tie game, in the box (although, personally, I'm in favor of no calls for game-winning PKs - I just like it that way). In our game vs True10's club - the ref gave 4 min of added time, after telling us he'd give 2 without a reason for the 2 other than 'delay' - which, I'm guessing was to retrieve a ball in the woods at Richland (2 min in the woods? woudn't that constitute a helicopter search for the child?). I've seen about 1 in 5 handballs called - but don't mind that so much (honestly, that has been consistently not called).
I learn a lot from our coach in that - during the game he questions the calls that can change the game, but afterward, if they did affect the game - he could care less. It helps one's blood pressure quite a bit. You can't do anything about it - so, there really isn't any need to dwell on it.
One of the best referees I can recall was 13 or 14 and explained his reasoning (in a very squeaky voice) for every call that was potentially questionable. I know the opponent wasn't happy as two PKs made the difference in the game, but I just liked the attempt to control the game and, more importantly, the crowd as it was getting a little concerning. I think if referees turned to the crowd or, at least the coaches and explained their thought process - it would help. In one of the games mentioned above, the referee stated 'it is okay' to explain a no call on a trip and a handball? That really doesn't help as he acknowledged the offense, but didn't do anything about it nor state advantage or anything.
We had an A/R kick a parent out, in front of a marshal who witnessed the entire episode. The marshal stated they would testify to the problem being the A/R, not the parent - but there was no forum for such. Our parent went to the official's room and asked if there was anything that can be done and they said 'no'. There should be some method for improving our crews, right? Basically, in the instance, the A/R claimed something was said and literally went off on the parent - it was very strange. But, given nothing happened from this - nothing was learned (from either the parent nor the A/R)? We've also had a parent as a linesman call an offside (which I didn't think was allowed)?
It's been interesting - I'm not letting my kids referee unless I want to thicken their skin for some reason. The parents are totally out of control - without the referees, we don't have games. They are doing us a favor, but there needs to be some mechanism for improvement (I'm not in favor of punishment really as there just aren't enough to go around).

clueless wrote:

mrclean wrote:As far as time management goes, I'm curious if anyone has ever seen this. We have a player red carded for a foul during a goal scoring opportunity (I'm not sure I agreed with it). It took maybe four to five minutes to figure out what had happened. The AR who made the call didn't know the number of the player so the Center and AR had to figure it out. Then they told one of our players to leave the field. Our coaches asked for an explanation. Maybe at the end of five minutes max the ref starts the game and tells our team that we will have 25 MINUTES of stoppage. It's 90+ degrees. We are a man down and he thinks we need to play an extra 25 minutes. We already subbed out a few of our starters so they are done. The game started at 12:00 and ended at 2:00.
With 25 minutes of stoppage and a man down, you can't help but think that there is just a little bit of pulling for the other team. It's ashame that as a high school coach, I am starting to expect more biased referees than in out of town games with home town refs. The referees are way too involved in the outcome of too many games. A discussion on "the spirit of the game" and whether or not contact between players is significant would be very much appreciated. I am seeing too many little bumps called and then a player gets shoved off the ball from behind or slide tackled from behind and no call. We had a player get taken out after he left the field while trying to keep a ball in. Another player slides him from behind while off the field and the linesman says "It happens" when asked for a call.
I am just not seeing any consistency as to what constitutes a foul or a caution.

I'm normally not a ref basher, but this year - I've definitely got a foot on the bandwagon. I've seen a total push from behind in a tie game, in the box (although, personally, I'm in favor of no calls for game-winning PKs - I just like it that way). In our game vs True10's club - the ref gave 4 min of added time, after telling us he'd give 2 without a reason for the 2 other than 'delay' - which, I'm guessing was to retrieve a ball in the woods at Richland (2 min in the woods? woudn't that constitute a helicopter search for the child?). I've seen about 1 in 5 handballs called - but don't mind that so much (honestly, that has been consistently not called).
I learn a lot from our coach in that - during the game he questions the calls that can change the game, but afterward, if they did affect the game - he could care less. It helps one's blood pressure quite a bit. You can't do anything about it - so, there really isn't any need to dwell on it.
One of the best referees I can recall was 13 or 14 and explained his reasoning (in a very squeaky voice) for every call that was potentially questionable. I know the opponent wasn't happy as two PKs made the difference in the game, but I just liked the attempt to control the game and, more importantly, the crowd as it was getting a little concerning. I think if referees turned to the crowd or, at least the coaches and explained their thought process - it would help. In one of the games mentioned above, the referee stated 'it is okay' to explain a no call on a trip and a handball? That really doesn't help as he acknowledged the offense, but didn't do anything about it nor state advantage or anything.
We had an A/R kick a parent out, in front of a marshal who witnessed the entire episode. The marshal stated they would testify to the problem being the A/R, not the parent - but there was no forum for such. Our parent went to the official's room and asked if there was anything that can be done and they said 'no'. There should be some method for improving our crews, right? Basically, in the instance, the A/R claimed something was said and literally went off on the parent - it was very strange. But, given nothing happened from this - nothing was learned (from either the parent nor the A/R)? We've also had a parent as a linesman call an offside (which I didn't think was allowed)?
It's been interesting - I'm not letting my kids referee unless I want to thicken their skin for some reason. The parents are totally out of control - without the referees, we don't have games. They are doing us a favor, but there needs to be some mechanism for improvement (I'm not in favor of punishment really as there just aren't enough to go around).

C'mon Clue, don't get excuses for your outraged parents. JK

LOL - my first inclination was to not defend him, but after finding out what the true deal was - my hand was forced.

clueless wrote:LOL - my first inclination was to not defend him, but after finding out what the true deal was - my hand was forced.

If that was at the game you played us I thought it was kind of a weird situation. The parent is always nice and personable. I thought it was a mistake.

clueless wrote:

mrclean wrote:As far as time management goes, I'm curious if anyone has ever seen this. We have a player red carded for a foul during a goal scoring opportunity (I'm not sure I agreed with it). It took maybe four to five minutes to figure out what had happened. The AR who made the call didn't know the number of the player so the Center and AR had to figure it out. Then they told one of our players to leave the field. Our coaches asked for an explanation. Maybe at the end of five minutes max the ref starts the game and tells our team that we will have 25 MINUTES of stoppage. It's 90+ degrees. We are a man down and he thinks we need to play an extra 25 minutes. We already subbed out a few of our starters so they are done. The game started at 12:00 and ended at 2:00.
With 25 minutes of stoppage and a man down, you can't help but think that there is just a little bit of pulling for the other team. It's ashame that as a high school coach, I am starting to expect more biased referees than in out of town games with home town refs. The referees are way too involved in the outcome of too many games. A discussion on "the spirit of the game" and whether or not contact between players is significant would be very much appreciated. I am seeing too many little bumps called and then a player gets shoved off the ball from behind or slide tackled from behind and no call. We had a player get taken out after he left the field while trying to keep a ball in. Another player slides him from behind while off the field and the linesman says "It happens" when asked for a call.
I am just not seeing any consistency as to what constitutes a foul or a caution.

I'm normally not a ref basher, but this year - I've definitely got a foot on the bandwagon. I've seen a total push from behind in a tie game, in the box (although, personally, I'm in favor of no calls for game-winning PKs - I just like it that way). In our game vs True10's club - the ref gave 4 min of added time, after telling us he'd give 2 without a reason for the 2 other than 'delay' - which, I'm guessing was to retrieve a ball in the woods at Richland (2 min in the woods? woudn't that constitute a helicopter search for the child?). I've seen about 1 in 5 handballs called - but don't mind that so much (honestly, that has been consistently not called).
I learn a lot from our coach in that - during the game he questions the calls that can change the game, but afterward, if they did affect the game - he could care less. It helps one's blood pressure quite a bit. You can't do anything about it - so, there really isn't any need to dwell on it.
One of the best referees I can recall was 13 or 14 and explained his reasoning (in a very squeaky voice) for every call that was potentially questionable. I know the opponent wasn't happy as two PKs made the difference in the game, but I just liked the attempt to control the game and, more importantly, the crowd as it was getting a little concerning. I think if referees turned to the crowd or, at least the coaches and explained their thought process - it would help. In one of the games mentioned above, the referee stated 'it is okay' to explain a no call on a trip and a handball? That really doesn't help as he acknowledged the offense, but didn't do anything about it nor state advantage or anything.
We had an A/R kick a parent out, in front of a marshal who witnessed the entire episode. The marshal stated they would testify to the problem being the A/R, not the parent - but there was no forum for such. Our parent went to the official's room and asked if there was anything that can be done and they said 'no'. There should be some method for improving our crews, right? Basically, in the instance, the A/R claimed something was said and literally went off on the parent - it was very strange. But, given nothing happened from this - nothing was learned (from either the parent nor the A/R)? We've also had a parent as a linesman call an offside (which I didn't think was allowed)?
It's been interesting - I'm not letting my kids referee unless I want to thicken their skin for some reason. The parents are totally out of control - without the referees, we don't have games. They are doing us a favor, but there needs to be some mechanism for improvement (I'm not in favor of punishment really as there just aren't enough to go around).

Two points...
One, there is no such thing as a "handball". It's called handeling and there is a HUGE difference. A FIFA grade 1 ref once stated that if handeling was never called you'd be right 90% of the time. It's not a foul just because the ball touches the hand.
Two, there certainly is an appeals process for any parent who gets sent off. He/she can request a hearing and have witnesses called.
I'll add a 3rd point...you say a ref took a PK score away from you. Was it a judgement call or a procedural one? If procedural, it is a misapplication of the LOTG and can be appealed.