# Socal Soccer Referee Abuse rules



## Gkdad1 (Sep 2, 2022)

Wonder how some of these rules will be enforced. Suspending a manager 3 days because a parent who is suspended shows up to a game is completely unreasonable. 
ABUSE (socalsoccerleague.org)


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Gkdad1 said:


> Wonder how some of these rules will be enforced. Suspending a manager 3 days because a parent who is suspended shows up to a game is completely unreasonable.
> ABUSE (socalsoccerleague.org)


This will work until someone actually tries to enforce it.

Referees already have the power to remove abusive players, coaches, and spectators.  Why isn't that working?


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## rainbow_unicorn (Sep 2, 2022)

Gkdad1 said:


> Wonder how some of these rules will be enforced. Suspending a manager 3 days because a parent who is suspended shows up to a game is completely unreasonable.
> ABUSE (socalsoccerleague.org)


Not that hard for a manager to tell parent to stay home for next 3 games.  The difficulty is the enforcement as the next 3 teams/refs will have no idea who that parent is or whether they are serving suspension.


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## Gkdad1 (Sep 2, 2022)

rainbow_unicorn said:


> Not that hard for a manager to tell parent to stay home for next 3 games.  The difficulty is the enforcement as the next 3 teams/refs will have no idea who that parent is or whether they are serving suspension.


correct telling the parent to stay home is easy, what is the manager supposed to do if the parent decides they aren't going to stay home?


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## Soccer Dad & Ref (Sep 2, 2022)

What does referee abuse refer to?  I did not see a definition in the pamphlet.  It has very harsh penalties.  Sounds different than what it took to get sent off, because that has a listed penalty.

At the bottom of the second page is this, which has a different penalty:

ANY PERSON who touches, confronts, chases, bullies, follows, cusses at, threatens, waits for, tries to fight, attacks or assaults a referee will be banned FOR LIFE from the SOCAL league and will be turned over to US Club Soccer for further disciplinary actions


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

Gkdad1 said:


> correct telling the parent to stay home is easy, what is the manager supposed to do if the parent decides they aren't going to stay home?


The entire rule is structured so that if a parent gets carded, to encourage the club to take measures by hauling the parent in front of the club board and imposing a suspension there too.  If the club doesn't, it places the responsibility on the manager and coach for failure to take action.  The unwritten supposition is if the parent still shows up after being suspended by the club board, the club board would remove the parent and child from the club.  SoCal didn't say that, but it is the logical inference to where it leads


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> The entire rule is structured so that if a parent gets carded, to encourage the club to take measures by hauling the parent in front of the club board and imposing a suspension there too.  If the club doesn't, it places the responsibility on the manager and coach for failure to take action.  The unwritten supposition is if the parent still shows up after being suspended by the club board, the club board would remove the parent and child from the club.  SoCal didn't say that, but it is the logical inference to where it leads


Any competent lawyer will tell you that unwritten rules are unenforceable.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> Any competent lawyer will tell you that unwritten rules are unenforceable.


That's a stupid comment.  There are lots of incentives built into lots of systems.  The government doesn't order people to cut back on spending to fight inflation.  It raises interest rates.  It pushes a button to get a result because people are generally rational and will act in accordance with incentives.

Here, the rule is structured to force the clubs to take actions to control problem parents.  SoCal doesn't want to say "kick out problem parents and their kids" for a variety of reasons, so it's created these incentives.

But you know that, and per your usual self, are just trolling.


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## dreamz (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> That's a stupid comment.  There are lots of incentives built into lots of systems.  The government doesn't order people to cut back on spending to fight inflation.  It raises interest rates.  It pushes a button to get a result because people are generally rational and will act in accordance with incentives.
> 
> Here, the rule is structured to force the clubs to take actions to control problem parents.  SoCal doesn't want to say "kick out problem parents and their kids" for a variety of reasons, so it's created these incentives.
> 
> But you know that, and per your usual self, are just trolling.


Sadly, this shouldn't even have to be a topic of discussion because parents shouldn't act like idiots at their kids games to begin with. Logic says "sit down and shut up" but unfortunately some people can't seem to behave and end up getting sent-off for it. Then it's up to the club to deal with it and handle the parent. If they don't, further consequences come into play. It doesn't matter what the rules are and who likes them and who doesn't because they shouldn't have to exist in the first place but because we've turned into a crazy society of anarchists and entitled humans consequences have to be spelled out and publicized.


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> That's a stupid comment.  There are lots of incentives built into lots of systems.  The government doesn't order people to cut back on spending to fight inflation.  It raises interest rates.  It pushes a button to get a result because people are generally rational and will act in accordance with incentives.
> 
> Here, the rule is structured to force the clubs to take actions to control problem parents.  SoCal doesn't want to say "kick out problem parents and their kids" for a variety of reasons, so it's created these incentives.
> 
> But you know that, and per your usual self, are just trolling.


Why is it that whenever I point out that you are factually incorrect you accuse me of trolling?

Speaking of you being incorrect, how's your "crossing the Rubicon" claim doing these days?  You followed that up with a false claim that public opinion polls were opposed to the Maralago warrant.  Do you have any new opinions to add?


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> Why is it that whenever I point out that you are factually incorrect you accuse me of trolling?
> 
> Speaking of you being incorrect, how's your "crossing the Rubicon" claim doing these days?  You followed that up with a false claim that public opinion polls were opposed to the Maralago warrant.  Do you have any new opinions to add?


Wow are you so political you have to drag a politics fight into a soccer discussion?  

I said "to encourage".  It's an incentive, not an unwritten rule.  I can't help it if you are constantly (or deliberately...which is it?) misunderstanding things.


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> Wow are you so political you have to drag a politics fight into a soccer discussion?
> 
> I said "to encourage".  It's an incentive, not an unwritten rule.  I can't help it if you are constantly (or deliberately...which is it?) misunderstanding things.


It's appropriate to your claim of me trolling.  

I note for the record that you have not responded to the question.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> It's appropriate to your claim of me trolling.
> 
> I note for the record that you have not responded to the question.


I for one do not intend to bring politics into a soccer forum, you chastised me last time for bringing a political discussion into the vaccine forum (despite you wading into an electric vehicle debate on said forum), and do not really hold an interest in any of the pure politics forums herein.  I think it's funny too that you think I have a burning desire to debate you on pretty much any topic.  My interactions with you are mostly for comic relief.        If you weren't so funny, I'd block you for the trolling like GoldenGate.


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> I for one do not intend to bring politics into a soccer forum, you chastised me last time for bringing a political discussion into the vaccine forum, and do not really hold an interest in any of the pure politics forums herein.  I think it's funny too that you think I have a burning desire to debate you on pretty much any topic.  My interactions with you are mostly for comic relief.        If you weren't so funny, I'd block you for the trolling like GoldenGate.


It appears that you have no defense to my finding of your falsely claiming that I was just trolling when in reality I was pointing out a fundamental error in what you posted.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> It appears that you have no defense top my finding of your falsely claiming that I was just trolling when in reality I was pointing out a fundamental error in what you posted.


I already defended that.  I pointed out that you (as you routinely do), misinterpreted the post (either deliberately, to troll, or incompetently).  At no point did I say there was an "unwritten rule".  My point is that it created an incentive.  But keep digging your hole....it's funny.                         The club is free, if they trust the parent and decide it's an innocent mistake, to let them stick around, but SoCal is saying well that risk is now on the manager and the coach for not pushing the issue.


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> I already defended that.  I pointed out that you (as you routinely do), misinterpreted the post (either deliberately, to troll, or incompetently).  At no point did I say there was an "unwritten rule".  My point is that it created an incentive.  But keep digging your hole....it's funny.


You still haven't responded to the "unenforceable" phrase.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> You still haven't responded to the "unenforceable" phrase.


God you are dense.  That's your word not mine.  What part of "incentives" don't you understand???  Incentives do not need to be enforced.  If the club trusts the parents and the manager and coach think it's an honest mistake, they don't have to prosecute him/her.  But then it shifts the risk of not doing anything onto the manager/coach/club.  The reason the incentive needs to be created is because the parent might be the parent of a kid too good to spare....therefore the club/coach/manager may turn a blind eye to it.  So a counter incentive is being creative to tell the club/coach/manager we mean it and if you don't do something about this parent the risk is on you.  It's ultimately the club/coach/manager's decision how exactly to handle it (Socal won't micro manage) but if you don't deal with it there will be consequences. It's not rocket science...it's soccer!


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> God you are dense.  That's your word not mine.  What part of "incentives" don't you understand???  Incentives do not need to be enforced.  If the club trusts the parents and the manager and coach think it's an honest mistake, they don't have to prosecute him/her.  But then it shifts the risk of not doing anything onto the manager/coach/club.  The reason the incentive needs to be created is because the parent might be the parent of a kid too good to spare....therefore the club/coach/manager may turn a blind eye to it.  So a counter incentive is being creative to tell the club/coach/manager we mean it and if you don't do something about this parent the risk is on you.  It's ultimately the club/coach/manager's decision how exactly to handle it (Socal won't micro manage) but if you don't deal with it there will be consequences. It's not rocket science...it's soccer!


Help me out here -- what is the legal term for punishing one person for offenses committed by another?  Is such a punishment enforceable?


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## Code (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> Help me out here -- what is the legal term for punishing one person for offenses committed by another?  Is such a punishment enforceable?


Accountability


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> Help me out here -- what is the legal term for punishing one person for offenses committed by another?  Is such a punishment enforceable?


Anything is enforceable if you have the power to do it....duh doy.  And you still are missing the point.  It's not punishing the club/coach/manager for the offense of the offending parent (i.e., the parent showing up again).  It's holding the club/coach/manager accountable for not taking the proper steps to ensure that it doesn't ever happen again (e.g., kicking the player off the team, bringing the parent in front of the board for suspension, financial penalties).


Code said:


> Accountability


You said it better than I could and with one word.


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

Grace T. said:


> Anything is enforceable if you have the power to do it....duh doy.  And you still are missing the point.  It's not punishing the club/coach/manager for the offense of the offending parent (i.e., the parent showing up again).  It's holding the club/coach/manager accountable for not taking the proper steps to ensure that it doesn't ever happen again (e.g., kicking the player off the team, bringing the parent in front of the board for suspension, financial penalties).
> 
> You said it better than I could and with one word.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> View attachment 14791
> 
> View attachment 14792


You are so hard to follow.  Are you complaining now that SoCal is not allowing the participation of the player who shouldn't be held to account for the behavior of their parent?


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## espola (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> View attachment 14791
> 
> View attachment 14792


Ezekiel 18: 20

[*20*] The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

espola said:


> Ezekiel 18: 20
> 
> [*20*] The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.


o.k.  I assume the answer is yes.  I'm more sympathetic to this argument.  I agree there's a certain lack of fairness to it.  But again, you have to look at it through the lens of incentives.  SoCal is basically trying to get the clubs to sanction and/or kick out the problem parents.   If the player can't play in league, they are of no use to the team.  Therefore, the club doesn't need to listen to the pleading coach "but I need the kid to win state cup" and to boot no other team will be super anxious to pick them up either because they aren't helpful there either.  I hear the argument that it's not fair to the kid.

BTW I don't think this is just a Socal league thing that's coming down from on high.  EA and MLS Next have announced similar no tolerance rules against parents/coaches/players.  I'm not up on all the differences, though.


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## Soccer Dad & Ref (Sep 2, 2022)

You two need to get a room


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## lafalafa (Sep 2, 2022)

Any league with a separate code of conduct should include ones for players, parents, coaches, spectators, managers, and yes the officials (refs) also.

Seen all the above not living up to reasonable codes of conducts or following normal "Golden rules"

Some are called on it, others ignored, while other "justified" there actions or not.  In either case refees can be abused or go rouge and abuse back others also so what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

What are other options besides suspension?  Attend training or reeducation?  And not just for one group, everyone should be held accountable and don't see that with this policy.


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## dreamz (Sep 2, 2022)

lafalafa said:


> Any league with a separate code of conduct should include ones for players, parents, coaches, spectators, managers, and yes the officials (refs) also.
> 
> Seen all the above not living up to reasonable codes of conducts or following normal "Golden rules"
> 
> ...


Why should a league be responsible for training or reeducating someone that shouldn't be acting the way they are in the first place. As a dad, if I knew my kid would be suspended for the whole seasons because I chased a referee to the parking lot then I'd think twice before I chased the referee. If I didn't think twice, there is no training or reeducation that anyone could put me through to fix me. 

Clubs should be educating and holding their parents, coaches and players accountable. The leagues are there to add consequences to unacceptable behavior that, as I said before, SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING TO BEGIN WITH.


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## Carlsbad7 (Sep 2, 2022)

If the clubs adopted apps for the refs that had all team checkin info it would be easy to suspend certain players game after game. It would also be easy to tag certain problem parents so refs game after game know who to keep an eye on.

The problem right now is that everything is manual (often by design) and problem players/parents/teams/clubs all know how to bend the rules + what they can get away with.

At least they're taking baby steps in the right direction.


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## SoccerFan4Life (Sep 2, 2022)

Gkdad1 said:


> correct telling the parent to stay home is easy, what is the manager supposed to do if the parent decides they aren't going to stay home?


As a team manager , I would ask the coach to not play the parents player.  That’s one way to get them to not show up.
If the parent insist, I will ask for the club director to remove the parent from the club.   Bottom line idiot parents need to learn to follow the rules.


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## Grace T. (Sep 2, 2022)

dreamz said:


> Why should a league be responsible for training or reeducating someone that shouldn't be acting the way they are in the first place. As a dad, if I knew my kid would be suspended for the whole seasons because I chased a referee to the parking lot then I'd think twice before I chased the referee. If I didn't think twice, there is no training or reeducation that anyone could put me through to fix me.
> 
> Clubs should be educating and holding their parents, coaches and players accountable. The leagues are there to add consequences to unacceptable behavior that, as I said before, SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING TO BEGIN WITH.


The clubs may not have the will to hold certain  parents (board members, high donors), coaches (established winners) and players (stars) accountable.  They may throw off the weaker or powerless players and bend the rules for others. The incentives the leagues are putting place is so there’s no rule bending and no slap on the wrist. If clubs could police themselves, we wouldn’t have the infamous problem coaches out there. The only real loop hole left would be going up or down another level to another separately carded league. 

I get the point about well what about bad referee conduct. I’ve seen it on two occasions. Unless you are either going to put referee supervisors on every field (expensive) or mandate photography of every games (ea and mls do) that’s hard to implement because the referee is the authority on the field.

I’m most concerned about the adolescent boys. They are hot heads at that age and many high personality players can have short fuses.  Kids make mistake and unlike adults don’t necessarily know better. The rules are pretty severe for a mistake including for retaliation or self defense.


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## Cruzer (Sep 29, 2022)

It was enforced! I got an email yesterday on it. Coach got red-carded and will have to miss 3 games.


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## SoccerFan4Life (Sep 30, 2022)

Last weekend 3 parents from the other team got red cards.  Coach got a yellow and ours got a warning.    They are not messing around.


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## mlx (Oct 1, 2022)

And then the question is, who watches the watchers?

Example:

A few weeks ago there was one of those HUGE-ego/little-man guys officiating a game. He had no ARs so he was missing off-sides left and right and we all know how parents react.

At some point, he calls a penalty (which was not, but that's beyond the point). All the parents and coaches protested. He stops, comes to the bench and tells the coach "I don't want to hear it anymore!!". The assistant coach asks "what do you not want to hear anymore?"; so, one of the parents adds his two cents and says "His mistakes! He doesn't want to hear anymore about us pointing out his mistakes!". The ref comes back and sends that parent off.

Up to this moment, even though the ref sucked, everything was fine and he threw out a parent. OK, good.

BUT, as the parent was leaving, the referee started mocking him "you see? that happens because you this or that, blahblah.... and you are an ignorant!!" and all sorts of provocations. The parent didn't take the bait and continued walking towards the parking lot. But another parent heard the referee insults and provocations and took the bait and made the issue way bigger, to the point of other parents ejected, players shown the red card for saying "wow, ref...", etc. All of these would have not happened if the ref just let that one parent go and continue the game. But no! his huge ego told him to provoke and provoke.

I agree there should be zero tolerance, but this doesn't give the ref a license to provoke. And for what I've read in the rules and policies, the league will not move a finger in these cases.

EDIT:
Holy cow!! I just violated the rule 10 of the code of conduct. Well, socal soccer league, bite me.


Don't you guys find this rule stupid? If I can say a politician, profesional sports player, singer, actor, etc. sucks online and social media, I am going to say it when a referee sucks too! What is this? the North Korea Soccer League?


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## Code (Oct 2, 2022)

mlx said:


> And then the question is, who watches the watchers?
> 
> Example:
> 
> ...


Sounds like you have a group of the problem parents on one team that can't handle a bad call, or a few missed calls from an official trying thier best to make a game happen for the players.  If their are no AR's, of course some offside calls are not going to be 100% correct.  If the coach can't adjust the teams play to work with that reality, then can't listen to the Ref when they say enough, your not going to find much sympathy when the parents and coaches keep getting sent off.  None of it would have happened if the loud mouth parents stayed out of it and let the coaches address it with the official.  And then the players started chirping in as well.  I have a feeling that the culture this team is cultivating is exactly what the Leauges are trying to get rid of.


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## mlx (Oct 2, 2022)

Code said:


> Sounds like you have a group of the problem parents on one team that can't handle a bad call, or a few missed calls from an official trying thier best to make a game happen for the players.  If their are no AR's, of course some offside calls are not going to be 100% correct.  If the coach can't adjust the teams play to work with that reality, then can't listen to the Ref when they say enough, your not going to find much sympathy when the parents and coaches keep getting sent off.  None of it would have happened if the loud mouth parents stayed out of it and let the coaches address it with the official.  And then the players started chirping in as well.  I have a feeling that the culture this team is cultivating is exactly what the Leauges are trying to get rid of.


you didn’t read or understood the part where the referee started escalating and insulting unnecessarily.


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## Orangeteam (Oct 3, 2022)

I assume this is the most unpopular punishment, but fining the clubs would ensure they take action.


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## Code (Oct 3, 2022)

mlx said:


> you didn’t read or understood the part where the referee started escalating and insulting unnecessarily.


I did.  But the problem obviously started way before the ref crossed the line.  You fault the ref for pushing back, and dismiss everything that happened up to that point; the ref said that's enough and the Assistant Coach, Parents, and Players kept going.  To put it in simpler terms:  The team fucked around and found out; you get what you give.


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