"Where have all the ref'rees gone . . . When will they ever learn?"

Over the weekend, public television had a fundraiser, which featured as gifts some CDs and a documentary DVD of the great American icon, activist, folksinger and all-around good guy Pete Seeger.  For an hour or two I was drawn to watch it, despite the interruptions from pitchmen.  The program brought back my time in graduate school in the sixties, the exciting incendiary decade with its turmoil and triumph, death and ultimate deliverance.  I hadn't realized that so many of the songs we sang were written by Pete Seeger, who is soon to be honored on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.

The title is from the great anti-war song "Where have all the flowers gone?"  I used it because although the original song has a tone of despair, it succeeds because if we don't acknowledge we have a problem, we cannot bring about changes of any kind.  So it is in soccer, as I saw clearly (again) recently . . .

First, there was an academy game, with teams of talented young players playing at great speed, and refereed by a national candidate.  Many such games are not real tests of refereeing, because the players are hoping to advance their careers, and if you mess with the referee or otherwise act badly, you might hurt your chances of selection.  So the games are fast--that, after all is the American way--but not intense in the way that competition usually is.  The candidate was not really challenged, and if I were to make a judgment, the game would be one in which the referee would not be rated.

That being the case, you might expect that the referee (if he detects that the players are not going to make a fuss) would be inclined to do everything right.  An assessor is watching, the players are under control, why not show how fastidious and hard-nosed you are?

But he did not, or if he did, he exposed what "doing everything right" meant to him.  He systematically ignored some of the provisions of laws 13, 14 and 15: delay of free kicks, encroachment by the goalkeeper to save a penalty-kick, and no attempts to enforce the correct location of throws-in.  Is it OK for a national candidate to ignore more than one-sixth of the laws of the game?  Those of you who have been reading the posts that I make on this site know the answer to that (always rhetorical) question!

Second was a trip to a popular park in Sacramento on Sunday to watch games from the Central California Soccer League.  I go there quite often to watch matches, chat with referees (dispensing free advice), and occasionally to do assessments for maintenance and for promotion.  Since I see most of the referees who do these games fairly regularly--in meetings of the Referees' Association, and in periodic clinics--I have some idea of how they are progressing, or of how much effort they put into their officiating.  They are the "usual suspects" of my database.

Except for a few, I haven't seen really significant changes in the work of most of the referees I look at.  The fitness standard is fairly low, and some don't even bother to take the tests, so sure are they of getting games whenever they want.  Attention to detail is lax, and it is clear from the demeanor of players that they rarely see a referee who punishes systematic delay of free kicks.  At Southside Park on the average Sunday, you can take a throw-in from wherever you like, except for any game worked by a couple of highly-ranked referees, who have decided that "Yes, Virginia, there is a law 15!"  And since I have been in northern California, I would testify that I have never seen a penalty-kick retaken for illegal encroachment by the goalkeeper, at Southside or anywhere else.

I am often amazed by the ingenuity with which referees explain away their decisions.  "We'll, he kept one foot on the line as he came forward."  "My rule of thumb for a call is one yard off the line."  And if there isn't an excuse, there's a soothing palliative for the assessor or observer: "Yes you're right.  I lost my concentration."  Recently I saw a referee twice miss flags after free kicks driven towards the goal, and so I explored with him the reason for missing the offside indication.  He gave me the concentration excuse, the turning away excuse, and eventually he settled on remembering that the free kicks were on his left, so that there was no way he could see his AR. When I pressed him as to how he was going to fix the problem, he couldn't come up with anything, and certainly there was no mention of going wide, or training more for extra aerobic fitness.  And when I suggested those remedies, he did allow: "I suppose so."  But without any conviction...

Why am I moaning on a beautiful morning like this?  Because I reflect that all the referees I am thinking about swear they love the game, and if they have been players, they will swear that they want to give something back to the game they enjoyed so much for so many years.  But give back what?  Inadequate refereeing?  Laziness they would not have tolerated among their teammates?

So what is this love they have for the game?  On any given Sunday, it sure doesn't look like love to me.  Where have all the referees gone?  When will they ever learn?  Showing up is not enough . . .

Comments

[Dustin Edwards]

I like how you're hard on Referees that don't try. It's like when I see referees that don't run doing a girls game, can't stand those guys.

Oh and I wanted to know what you thought about this...

http://ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_13533186.html

[Brent Carpenter]

I just found your site through a friend and agree that the overall quality of refs is hurting. I am a new ref and have a lot of improvement to make, but I believe it comes back to the first part of your question "where have all the refs gone". I have 4 daughters who are or have been referees (including one who was youth referee of the year for south texas) and only one of them will willing do it now, another if pressed and the others not at all. They are fed up with getting screamed at by coaches and parents who don't know the laws, but know how to complain. If we want great refs, we need to teach the youth parents and coaches the laws, ethics and proper behavior first; otherwise we will continue to lose our best referees before they get to be great.

http://soccertalk-texas.blogspot.com/

[ObliviousScout]

As you point out, however, most of these lazy referees will continue to get games. The underlying problem is quite simply that we have too few referees. Assignors in many places are lucky to be able to throw three warm bodies onto the field; they don't have the luxury of choosing three referees who have high standards of fitness and dedication.

If we're really going to improve the state of officiating in this country, we need to drastically increase the number of referees--particularly at the recreational levels.

A requirement for every organized team should be that one of their current roster of players must be a referee, and must work in the league they play for. Most good referees are current or former players. Not every referee drafted in this manner will be great, and many will quit as soon as they start, but we have to start somewhere, and increasing the number of referees by looking to the players should be the first place we start.