Talking/communication from Refs

Long post about a minor issue, but it's been nagging at me, so humor me here. My youngest is in AYSO and I did the ref training to be a parent AR for U10, and the instructors trained us to communicate only with hand signals and discouraged calling out to the center ref for any reason. They said it was "unprofessional." Which I thought was funny since we're all unpaid volunteers. They didn't see the humor. But I found it interesting that they also advised the CRs and ARs to not talk to the coaches and players during the games or answer questions about calls or how much time is left, etc. Coming from more of a football and basketball background, where there is quite a bit of chatter between the refs themselves, with players, and with coaches during a game, I found this odd. Most of the chatter in those sports is not arguing, but clarifications on calls or just more information being shared. I get why soccer refs don't want to converse with coaches and players in game (in the other sports there are stoppages and time outs, so there is more opportunity for it) but it seems like soccer refs miss opportunities to clear things up and make the game go more smoothly by not ever communicating verbally. I got the impression from the training (and it seems to match what I've seen in my older DD's club and HS games) that ideally soccer refs are silent and do not interact or talk with players or coaches or even each other during the game. Again, this seems to be a cultural difference between soccer and other sports where there is lots of talk.

So a few weekends ago, I saw a weird situation where this wall of referee silence ended up causing a melt-down for one team's sideline. A girl on the other team was carrying a well-earned yellow card from a dangerous challenge early in the game. Later, she fouls another player from behind. This second foul was a bit clumsy, and definitely a foul, but not particularly hard or rough. The ref calls the foul but does not show a caution. Which even our sideline agreed was correct. Then he says something to the player and gestures for her to get off the field, pointing to the sideline. The girl shrugs and begins to jog over to her bench area. The coach is dumbfounded because a second yellow has not been shown. He tells the girl to stay on the field. The girl turns around and heads back. The ref sees this and sprints over to her and shows yellow #2 and then red card. When the player is sent off and talks to the coach and the parents, the other side goes apoplectic. Eventually one of the parents is thrown out for making a scene. On our side, we have no idea what has happened but it was disastrous for our opponents. Later, my player explained what really happened: The second foul was not a caution, but the ref noticed that the girl was wearing earrings and told her to go take them out. The coach didn't get this message and told her to go back. The ref then gave a second caution to the girl for not leaving the field to remove her earrings, thinking she was disobeying him. The parents and the coach went nuts, and everything devolved from there. I don't know why the ref didn't just go over to the coach and explain why he was sending the player to the sideline? Or just clear it up and let the girl take out her earrings and come back? But he refused to even talk to the coach. It just looked like a huge miscommunication to me, and when I had gotten the ref training, it made me realize that this must be a cultural thing in soccer refereeing. And maybe not a good one.

What do you veteran refs think? Am I way off base?
 
Long post about a minor issue, but it's been nagging at me, so humor me here. My youngest is in AYSO and I did the ref training to be a parent AR for U10, and the instructors trained us to communicate only with hand signals and discouraged calling out to the center ref for any reason. They said it was "unprofessional." Which I thought was funny since we're all unpaid volunteers. They didn't see the humor. But I found it interesting that they also advised the CRs and ARs to not talk to the coaches and players during the games or answer questions about calls or how much time is left, etc. Coming from more of a football and basketball background, where there is quite a bit of chatter between the refs themselves, with players, and with coaches during a game, I found this odd. Most of the chatter in those sports is not arguing, but clarifications on calls or just more information being shared. I get why soccer refs don't want to converse with coaches and players in game (in the other sports there are stoppages and time outs, so there is more opportunity for it) but it seems like soccer refs miss opportunities to clear things up and make the game go more smoothly by not ever communicating verbally. I got the impression from the training (and it seems to match what I've seen in my older DD's club and HS games) that ideally soccer refs are silent and do not interact or talk with players or coaches or even each other during the game. Again, this seems to be a cultural difference between soccer and other sports where there is lots of talk.

So a few weekends ago, I saw a weird situation where this wall of referee silence ended up causing a melt-down for one team's sideline. A girl on the other team was carrying a well-earned yellow card from a dangerous challenge early in the game. Later, she fouls another player from behind. This second foul was a bit clumsy, and definitely a foul, but not particularly hard or rough. The ref calls the foul but does not show a caution. Which even our sideline agreed was correct. Then he says something to the player and gestures for her to get off the field, pointing to the sideline. The girl shrugs and begins to jog over to her bench area. The coach is dumbfounded because a second yellow has not been shown. He tells the girl to stay on the field. The girl turns around and heads back. The ref sees this and sprints over to her and shows yellow #2 and then red card. When the player is sent off and talks to the coach and the parents, the other side goes apoplectic. Eventually one of the parents is thrown out for making a scene. On our side, we have no idea what has happened but it was disastrous for our opponents. Later, my player explained what really happened: The second foul was not a caution, but the ref noticed that the girl was wearing earrings and told her to go take them out. The coach didn't get this message and told her to go back. The ref then gave a second caution to the girl for not leaving the field to remove her earrings, thinking she was disobeying him. The parents and the coach went nuts, and everything devolved from there. I don't know why the ref didn't just go over to the coach and explain why he was sending the player to the sideline? Or just clear it up and let the girl take out her earrings and come back? But he refused to even talk to the coach. It just looked like a huge miscommunication to me, and when I had gotten the ref training, it made me realize that this must be a cultural thing in soccer refereeing. And maybe not a good one.

What do you veteran refs think? Am I way off base?
AYSO instruction can be good or not so good, depending upon the experiences and experience of the person giving the class.

I talk to everyone as necessary. I want my ARs to talk to me, to the players, maybe not so much the coaches, but sometimes yes. It's very old school to try and get the referees attention by popping your flag., and not really communicating verbally. In my pregame I ask my ARs to yell my name if I miss an offside flag or if something happens behind ne that needs immediate attention. I talk to players. I talk to coaches. The situation you describe is not good. Easily avoidable and causing trouble and bad feelings for no reason.
 
I agree that the referee telling the coach what this issue was, would have a been a simple and thoughtful gesture. Giving a 2nd yellow (red) in a U10 AYSO rec game (or just about anywhere) in the situation described is completely absurd and this referee needs to be reported to your referee admin. That being said, I do suspect there were some issues with the coach that preceded this, which wouldn't surprise me.

Those issues aside, if the coach sees the referee tell his player to go to the sideline (yellow or not), he shouldn't tell her to stay in the game. He should ask the player, and politely the referee, why she is being removed. And why didn't the player tell her coach she had to take her earrings out? All strange circumstances.

Of the dozens of girls U10 AYSO games I have seen and refereed, I rarely see more than 1-2 direct kick fouls a game other than handling. A player at this age who gets a yellow, then fouls from behind needs better coaching.
 
I agree that the referee telling the coach what this issue was, would have a been a simple and thoughtful gesture. Giving a 2nd yellow (red) in a U10 AYSO rec game (or just about anywhere) in the situation described is completely absurd and this referee needs to be reported to your referee admin. That being said, I do suspect there were some issues with the coach that preceded this, which wouldn't surprise me.

Those issues aside, if the coach sees the referee tell his player to go to the sideline (yellow or not), he shouldn't tell her to stay in the game. He should ask the player, and politely the referee, why she is being removed. And why didn't the player tell her coach she had to take her earrings out? All strange circumstances.

Of the dozens of girls U10 AYSO games I have seen and refereed, I rarely see more than 1-2 direct kick fouls a game other than handling. A player at this age who gets a yellow, then fouls from behind needs better coaching.
Sorry, I should have been more clear in my post. I took the ref classes for my son's u10 AYSO season, but the situation I described happened in a girls game that was a U17 tournament game that my older kid's club team was in. I agree that the coach shouldn't have told the girl to go back onto the field without further clarification. I think he was already pissed about the earlier yellow and yes, I suspect he and his sideline had already put themselves in the crosshairs of the CR.
 
AYSO instruction can be good or not so good, depending upon the experiences and experience of the person giving the class.

I talk to everyone as necessary. I want my ARs to talk to me, to the players, maybe not so much the coaches, but sometimes yes. It's very old school to try and get the referees attention by popping your flag., and not really communicating verbally. In my pregame I ask my ARs to yell my name if I miss an offside flag or if something happens behind ne that needs immediate attention. I talk to players. I talk to coaches. The situation you describe is not good. Easily avoidable and causing trouble and bad feelings for no reason.
Thanks. I have seen refs who conduct the game the way you describe, and I always thought very highly of them, but it wasn't until I took the class that I thought maybe this was somehow frowned upon in soccer.
 
Thanks. I have seen refs who conduct the game the way you describe, and I always thought very highly of them, but it wasn't until I took the class that I thought maybe this was somehow frowned upon in soccer.
old school dictates, as you say, it "seems unprofessional" to yell at your center referee to communicate. I think, it's unprofessional to not use any means possible to communicate when it mattters.
And you better yell at me. I'm half deaf
 
Sorry, I should have been more clear in my post. I took the ref classes for my son's u10 AYSO season, but the situation I described happened in a girls game that was a U17 tournament game that my older kid's club team was in. I agree that the coach shouldn't have told the girl to go back onto the field without further clarification. I think he was already pissed about the earlier yellow and yes, I suspect he and his sideline had already put themselves in the crosshairs of the CR.
Well that's a bit different. A U17 player fouling from behind likely earned her 2nd yellow, if not red. Especially if already cautioned. Challenges from behimd are inherently dangerous.

I also question whether a player of that age would not tell her coach its her earrings, and disobey the referee. Sounds like theres a lot more to the "story."
 
Well that's a bit different. A U17 player fouling from behind likely earned her 2nd yellow, if not red. Especially if already cautioned. Challenges from behimd are inherently dangerous.

I also question whether a player of that age would not tell her coach its her earrings, and disobey the referee. Sounds like theres a lot more to the "story."
It certainly was odd. On our sideline, we couldn't hear the exchanges. I would have understood if the foul from behind was the second yellow, but he didn't show it until after the girl tried to come back. And I thought the earring thing was odd, but my player swore that's why he sent her to the sideline.

Point being that there wasn't clear communication from the ref.
 
At u17 why is a player wearing earrings in a game? At u10, I get it. They either just had them pierced and "can't" take them out (regardless they should NOT be allowed to play with earrings). Or she just forgot.
A 16, they know better.
 
Part of my pregame is to tell the AR's to talk to the players. I also tell them to talk to me especially if I am going to screw something up or if they saw something that I did not see. As a center I don't talk to the coach very often, but as an AR I talk a lot more to the coach. As for the parents, I try to ignore them. Occasionally I will talk to them to explain why something was or was not called. Some sidelines are full of asshole parents that just want to argue, while most sidelines are full of nice spectators that appreciate an explanation. As a CR, I am talking to players all the time. I was a CR on a B2000 game today that I issued no yellow/red cards. I was hard on the whistle early and talked to the players. The players listened and we had a fairly clean, fast, and good game, which was really fun to officiate. It also depends how you talk to them. I try to be very professional and polite.
 
Long post about a minor issue, but it's been nagging at me, so humor me here. My youngest is in AYSO and I did the ref training to be a parent AR for U10, and the instructors trained us to communicate only with hand signals and discouraged calling out to the center ref for any reason. They said it was "unprofessional." Which I thought was funny since we're all unpaid volunteers. They didn't see the humor. But I found it interesting that they also advised the CRs and ARs to not talk to the coaches and players during the games or answer questions about calls or how much time is left, etc. Coming from more of a football and basketball background, where there is quite a bit of chatter between the refs themselves, with players, and with coaches during a game, I found this odd. Most of the chatter in those sports is not arguing, but clarifications on calls or just more information being shared. I get why soccer refs don't want to converse with coaches and players in game (in the other sports there are stoppages and time outs, so there is more opportunity for it) but it seems like soccer refs miss opportunities to clear things up and make the game go more smoothly by not ever communicating verbally. I got the impression from the training (and it seems to match what I've seen in my older DD's club and HS games) that ideally soccer refs are silent and do not interact or talk with players or coaches or even each other during the game. Again, this seems to be a cultural difference between soccer and other sports where there is lots of talk.

So a few weekends ago, I saw a weird situation where this wall of referee silence ended up causing a melt-down for one team's sideline. A girl on the other team was carrying a well-earned yellow card from a dangerous challenge early in the game. Later, she fouls another player from behind. This second foul was a bit clumsy, and definitely a foul, but not particularly hard or rough. The ref calls the foul but does not show a caution. Which even our sideline agreed was correct. Then he says something to the player and gestures for her to get off the field, pointing to the sideline. The girl shrugs and begins to jog over to her bench area. The coach is dumbfounded because a second yellow has not been shown. He tells the girl to stay on the field. The girl turns around and heads back. The ref sees this and sprints over to her and shows yellow #2 and then red card. When the player is sent off and talks to the coach and the parents, the other side goes apoplectic. Eventually one of the parents is thrown out for making a scene. On our side, we have no idea what has happened but it was disastrous for our opponents. Later, my player explained what really happened: The second foul was not a caution, but the ref noticed that the girl was wearing earrings and told her to go take them out. The coach didn't get this message and told her to go back. The ref then gave a second caution to the girl for not leaving the field to remove her earrings, thinking she was disobeying him. The parents and the coach went nuts, and everything devolved from there. I don't know why the ref didn't just go over to the coach and explain why he was sending the player to the sideline? Or just clear it up and let the girl take out her earrings and come back? But he refused to even talk to the coach. It just looked like a huge miscommunication to me, and when I had gotten the ref training, it made me realize that this must be a cultural thing in soccer refereeing. And maybe not a good one.

What do you veteran refs think? Am I way off base?
The instructors misled the trainees. next to correct application of competition rules, communication is the most important thing. There is no good game control and enjoyment without good communication.
 
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