Observations from another site.

I’m pleased to see that on another site devoted to soccer, a thread developed about incidents involving refereeing in MLS.  The writers were obviously knowledgeable about the procedures of the league, and in my opinion were on target with their criticisms.  Before I post my promised recommendations for improving some aspects of the national referee program, let me exhibit a few comments from the discussion in that thread.  The names are exactly as they appeared on the site, even though some of them are clearly fictional.  Go to the site for the complete comments.

Bill Archer:

Most American sports fans aren't aware of how truly putrid MLS officiating is.
I can hardly think of a single MLS game this year where the guy in the center didn't make some completely inexplicable, mind-blowing, glaring, game-altering decision that left you shaking your head in disbelief.

All of us probably have one particular incident that stands out in our minds: for me, it was when Barros-Schelotto was dribbling into the center of the box, about to go one-on-one with the keeper, and a defender came from his left side, slightly behind, went for the tackle, missed badly and chopped Schelotto down. The referee blew his whistle and signaled a foul. . . On Schelotto.

The players are frustrated. The coaches are tearing their hair out. The fans feel cheated after having an event they paid good money to see get ruined

Speaking of firing, since the day MLS began, the guy who's been in overall charge of all things referee has been Director of Officiating Joe Machnik. Now Joe is a member of the American soccer good-old-boys network . . . But if, after twelve years on the job, you were turning in results like Joe's, I'm thinking your boss would wonder if maybe you ought to pursue another line of work. Let's give Joe a gold watch and a nice luncheon and then turn his job over to somebody else, someone willing to take some drastic steps.

DGA57:

More recent examples of referee ineptitude would be the last Rapids-Crew game . . . I'll narrow down just to two moments. In the second minute of the match, Petke hammers into Barros-Schelotto who just managed to move the ball to the wing towards Moreno. Whistle blows, advantage disappears, and then no card is even shown on that one. If you're going to warn the guy, at least let the play develop. The second one was when Sanneh managed to grab hold of someone's jersey in midfield, ride the guy for 3-4 yards, stop the counter, and then not get the card shown to him. Just another stern warning from the inept guy in the middle.

Mick7184:

The Premiership has it's officiating issues, but I've never seen it look like amateur hour like you see in 50% of MLS games. That PK from the Chelsea-Liverpool game wouldn’t even register on the bad MLS calls scale. Look at the way the people that have spent plenty of time out of MLS react to the officiating, like I said earlier, Beckham has clearly been appalled by it, Nicol is going to have a heart attack on the sidelines one of these days, and the reactions of Euro players when they come to play here against MLS sides is comical. If noticed a lot of the guys like Dichio that have come in here this year, one of the first things they bring up when people ask them to compare leagues is how piss poor MLS' officiating is.

Geneva:

It is tough to watch the bad calls. We could all cite one or two after every game. Last week for me it was Kipre of RSL wrapping both arms around Kyle Martino to take him down in the box, and no call from Okulaja.

I can guess at what is happening. These guys are second-guessing themselves, they're afraid to make a call. Marrufo got criticized earlier in the year for calling soft PK's, and now you can see him missing obvious ones. He called a couple of great games in the first part of the year, but he's regressed. Re-watching the game & doing a self-evaluation?? It's overkill.

LordRobin:

MLS officiating is poor, no doubt, but a moment in the US Open Cup Tuesday night was worse than anything I've ever seen. First half, late in stoppage time, Seattle gets an attack into the penalty area. The ball's on the attacker's foot, he's moving, just needs a few jukes to get off a shot... and the ref suddenly blows his whistle and ends the half. I'd never seen a ref end play in the middle of an offensive chance before. It left me shouting "What the f***?!" at my computer screen...

Now this is the USOC, not MLS, but it is run by the USSF, the same group that's supposed to be helping MLS evaluate their refs. If this is the quality of officiating for the semifinals of their "big tournament", I don't see what we can expect of them in regards to helping MLS.

John L:

Another aspect to encourage is "Game Management", particularly early in a game - There are certain Refs in England and Argentina that do this particularly well in emotional games - If there is a borderline physical foul early in the game, they will take the two players aside and talk calmly to them to calm them down and yet firmly warn them to stop the overly-physical fouls - No Cards, just a stern talking to - And sometimes it takes only just a really bad scowl - Imagine an MLS player getting a scowl from Pierluigi Collina - Course he would scare anyone with a smile too - ANYWAYS - "Game Management" would allow the Ref to let players know he sees the fouls but is letting the flow of the game go on for now.

Pierre Head:

With reference to the MLS referee assessment procedure, you should understand that many of the ISO's and the coach/mentors are people who themselves have never refereed professional soccer matches in a top outdoor professional league themselves. This includes the National Director of Assessment, and Joe Macknik himself (although he is not an ISO or coach/mentor). It is not surprising that these assessments
are not effective. Mainly they are appeasements.

"And it's not like the league isn't trying to fix it:"

Yes it is! I have been told by a friend of mine with inside knowledge that apparently knowledgeable and experienced assessors who are too critical of the league's favorite referees are dispensed with, and replaced by less qualified people who do not rock the boat, and know what to say to keep their jobs.

All of this has been pointed out time and time again for years in the printed press, and on referee internet boards.  For instance see the discussions of the recent Beckham/Marsch foul and its repercussions on (this site).

And as for the EPL, the referee who gave the bad PK decision in the Chelsea/Liverpool game was suspended as a result. This was all over the press and internet.

My comments:

The errors described by the writers in these posts are the more surprising because they come from a league that has been in operation for ten years.  Yet these errors shouldn't have occurred in amateur games, let alone professional matches.

What is happening is that the referees are not being taught the techniques they need to avoid these problems.  That is nothing less than a failure of the national referee program to prepare officials for MLS, a failure of assessors who recommend people who are not capable, and as "Pierre Head" wrote above, a failure of assessing in MLS, where tough and demanding critics get eliminated.  Like me.

Comments

[ref47]

example. ref night at dc united. i ask the ref what his threshold/thoughts are on pi and point to fact that fred had 6 fouls in the match. his reply, "i don't keep track of the number of fouls during the match. too many other things to keep track of." and the iso did not say a word about this as he sat on stage with the ref.

[snuffleupagus]

6 fouls should have been the max for any player in any match to get a card (4 in a half).

[anon]

What I really remember is Ref's night at the Revolution. Boldomero Toledo had a terrible game, no game changing calls but a general sense of anger from all the players and an ugly, physical match, with two yellow cards for dissent to only one for foul play. After the game, the first thing he says is "I think it was one of the easier games I've had all season." I need to see these west coast games; they must be murder!