An Error can lead to Bad Advice, and possibly to . . . Unethical Behavior.

    Thanks to my friend Chuck Stuart in Idaho Falls for the heads-up to an article in Soccer America (Jan. 31, 2012).  To quote him: "When I read it, my jaw just dropped - the advice in the article just seems to go completely against what I would expect to be the correct actions of the referee."

    Chuck's instincts are accurate.  The article offers bad advice that violates the LOTG, and if that advice is allowed to be widely publicized, it could lead to widespread corruption of the game and its laws.  And it is all to do with the simple act of a referee overruling an assistant about a flag raised to indicate an offside infraction.  [I have written to Soccer America suggesting they publish a correction.]

    In the article, the writer Randy Vogt, who has self-published a book called "Preventive Refereeing", describes an incident from a game two decades ago.  An attacking team plays the ball forward towards a player in an offside position.  The AR raises his flag and the referee pauses before making a decision, waiting to see if the offside player becomes involved.  So far, so good.  Hesitation on the part of both assistant and referee is an important element in getting offside decisions right.  But here the assistant was too quick with his flag, too hasty.

    As the referee remarked: "Clearly, the assistant and I did not work as a team on this important call."  Well, I'm not sure; teamwork sometimes involves waving off an incorrect or unneeded signal.  In this case the referee should have waved the flag down, but in the article the referee wrote that instead of waiting to see if there was an infraction, he should have gone with the AR's interpretation.  Why?  Because, he says, the game became difficult after that point.

    Then, remembering his discomfort on the day of that match, he added this egregious piece of defective advice, and he has stuck with that opinion for more than two decades (!):

     When I saw those words, I cried in a whisper at that image, that unwholesome vision—I cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—"The horror! The horror!"  [With apologies to  Joseph Conrad; see Heart of Darkness.]

    The referee, afraid that there would be a fuss over the supposed offside, recommends perverting the laws rather than learning to deal with management of his own emotions.  I could write a long discourse over this "advice", which is impossible to administer ("Just a minute, lads, I need to do a quick survey of all twenty-two of you to see what you think of this decision.") but I will spare the reader and leave you with a summary:

    1. The referee is supposed to overrule an assistant who make a wrong decision, or gives an unwise flag.  Remember that assistants provide only information, the referee alone makes the decision.

    2. The referee's first responsibility is not the comfort of the officials, but the correct administration of the officiating.

    3. If this referee had done what he now recommends, he would have called back a perfectly legal goal, the scoring of which involved no breach of the law.  Is that how Mr. Vogt thinks refereeing is supposed to be done?  Violate the laws as he sees fit?

    Tomorrow: How to talk your way out of a flag raised inappropriately.

 

Comments

[Dennis Wickham]

Battle scarred referees prefer to avoid conflicts with players and assistants. Always going with the flag avoids conflicts. But, aren't courageous decisions the essence of a good referee?

My experience is that I never have been wrong in waving down an offside flag and never have been right in calling an unflagged offside. Inevitably, post match discussions will reveal for the overruled flag that the AR raised the flag too soon because the ball was ignored by the PIOP and then played by someone in onside position or because the AR didn't know that a defender had last played (possessed/controlled) the ball. The discussions also reveal, to my horror, that on the called "unflag," I failed to see the trailing defender far away from play.

Perhaps the wiser advice is to go with the unflag.-----------------------------------------Dennis: Your note reads as though you have talked yourself into agreeing with me. Bob.