TangoCity
GOLD
and my point is, that there are no guarantees that cards, send offs, etc., cures all ills. the responsibility lies with the coaches, players, and the parents of the players.
also, as has been mentioned repeatedly in this thread, at younger ages, and on lower level games, the referee might not be experienced enough to know exactly how to manage thuggery.
Of course there are no guarantees but if those tools aren't used - or used even close to correctl
I agreed with your initial statement about safety, but not about your assertion that multiple injuries are the refs fault. Too many people blame the Referee for injuries that the referee had no control over. Sure if there is A player that commits a dangerous tackle and the referee does not give a card and it happens again and someone is hurt than it may fall on the referee as the one at fault, but the layer is still also responsible for the dangerous tackle. I had a game last week that resulted in four bad injuries, two players going to the hospital via ambulance, another taken by POV to the ER and a forth that probably should have gone to the ER. None of them were the Referee team’s fault.
Injury 1 & 2 were from from a ball out in the open that two players ran at full speed to get and kicked it at the same time. Result was complete tib/fib break and ambulance ride for player 1 and broken wrist for player 2. Completely clean play. Injury 3 was the keeper diving to make a save hit his head on the goalpost and had to leave the game with concussion symptoms. No fault of the Referee. Injury 4 and second ambulance was a player taking off in a sprint to catch a through ball tore his Achilles’ tendon (it rolled up into his calf. No fault of the referee.
I think that is what most people are saying. The player/coach (maybe even parent of player) is responsible for the dirty play and injury the first time. When there are a dozen wreckless fouls with many of them bordering on violent with teammates congratulating each other for injuring players and the referee has done NOTHING other than call some of them fouls then the referee becomes complicit in the carnage. Yes, it is not the referee slamming a players head into the ground, yes it is not the referee who throws a punch at someone's face -- but when the referee utterly fails to act on it then he/she has enabled those dirty players to continue what they are doing. Yes, the players and teams are the ones who should be punished but that referee needs to be retrained or find another low paying hobby.