Referees - what can we all do to improve the situation?

[Overlap]

Okay, I've put several examples on this thread. This weekend the team had 2 games, the Saturday game is now the winner for terrible ref's this season (I think we're now at maybe 50% of the games that we've had a decent ref crew so far) They crew seemed nice enough but, the other team showed up short on players, I give them credit as their team was doing their best to stay in the game until their coach started yelling at every freaking call, screaming for calls that weren't there and then his asst. jumped into the the berating of the ref's, talking trash to our players and then shouting across to our parents. It starts to get really ugly second half, the ref starts calling fouls that weren't there just because he can't take take the coaches screaming, it was somewhat funny until their players took a swing at our player going to goal, red card gets pulled and all hell breaks lose. If the ref would have talked to their coach as soon as his BS started with shooting off his big mouth, it would have saved a red card of an already short handed team and made the game much more enjoyable to watch

 

[Grace T.]

Not sure if the rating system would help, but it would be interesting to see how ratings vary based on whether the team won or lost.

I'm sure they would, particularly if it's a close game and the other side believed a bad call decided the game. But the algorithm could account for that, giving appropriate weight to the winning and losing team's ratings. You don't need to make the rating public (the plus of making it public is transparency since otherwise there will be accusations of favoritism and cronyism, the neg is that will act as a further discouragement on referees which means upping the fees to attract good people and also acts as a source of corruption as refs could be influenced to up their ratings by cutting side deals). It just serves as a data point to flag for assessors where the problem areas are for both coaches and refs so they can be blind checked. I agree video should also be accepted as a data point (submitted by the coach on the referee or the opposing coach for another coach's behavior). Again, a data point that could serve for blind checks on the worst offenders, since assessors can't be everywhere....not part of a reevaluation of the results of a game or grounds for suspension in and of itself.....part of the obligation to move up the referee and coach rankings could also be time required to serve as an assessor.

I also just want to point out the laws of economics are solid and unavoidable. It's all risk reward analysis. A ref has to analyze the neg (time lost, opportunity costs to raise other money, and the abuse they have to put up with) v. the positive (the cash earned, much of it probably not going reported in taxes, and the immigration standards being somewhat lax). I liked talking to the crew I helped out this weekend (as a last minute volunteer)...we made up an all Hispanic crew....CR didn't speak a lot of English but really great guy who loved the game and who did a decent job with what was thrown at him....both wondered if it was all worth it given the abuse and the amount of money being made...both sad about how the number of refs are declining and many of the knowledgeable old timers retiring. You want better people, ultimately supply and demand says if you can't force em (like AYSO) you'll have to pay them more because otherwise you are relying on their love of the game and that's becoming fewer and far between. I can tell you I spent most of the afternoon regretting raising my hand and stepping up to volunteer...I wanted to do it for the kids, to do it for the refs, and to do it for the game....the way I was treated and I saw the CR treated just reinforces to me no good deed ever goes unpunished.

 

[LASTMAN14]

I like the idea of an uber sort of rating. It would probably be fairly easy to develop an app.

We have used a rating system in my men's league for years. When posting a score they ask for input on the ref crew. The head of the association if given enough comments worth looking into have often come out to evaluate the ref's and speak with us directly. In many instances the quality of the ref's have improved as well as the relationships between teams and ref crews. In fact I see many of these same ref's officiating my kids games and often we talk as we are now on a first name basis.

 

[Eagle33]

We have used a rating system in my men's league for years. When posting a score they ask for input on the ref crew. The head of the association if given enough comments worth looking into have often come out to evaluate the ref's and speak with us directly. In many instances the quality of the ref's have improved as well as the relationships between teams and ref crews.

You comparing apples with oranges. Many associations would never send inexperienced referees to adult league games.
Youth is very different. Sometimes you get what you get, if you lucky enough to even get a full crew.

 

[LASTMAN14]

You comparing apples with oranges. Many associations would never send inexperienced referees to adult league games.
Youth is very different. Sometimes you get what you get, if you lucky enough to even get a full crew.

I am not comparing, but offering an example to support ref reporting methods which have worked. Therefore providing evidence it could work. You are also assuming in regards to inexperienced ref's being sent or not full crews being available. But I have evidence of inexperienced ref's being assigned to adult games and many a time had a single ref for an adult game.