NEW Referee Abuse Policy

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

I’ve never complained about ref fees. To be honest, I don’t think they get paid enough. We should also have rates for higher rated refs. I think if we did that and we know what level ref we’re paying for we know what to expect and can make decisions if it’s worth playing or not on any given tournament or league.

We should have a rating system for refs.

After each game, both sides can rate the ref.

I can surely see the abuse of this system if it's an open system like a website where anyone can register as a user and submit a rating...

But I don't know... something... something where the good ones are rated as such and known... and the bad ones... well then they're not being used for important games...

I get it. There's a shortage to begin with... so we gotta live with whoever shows up... But it'll be nice to know which ref is showing up, his or her rating... etc

 

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

I think US Soccer could do two things to improve the overall quality of officiating:
- Reduce the red tape involved in getting more people in the pipeline (eg: remove the ancillary training and contractual requirements, allow a "test in" for certification without the mandatory annual training hours, etc.)
- Add public ratings to weed out the truly bad referees, and reward the good referees

Aside: There's a perception that a pay increase would improve the quality, but I'm not sure that would do much good. I suspect that some people who referee are motivated by the money (as side income), and some are motivated by making the overall youth game better. For the former, you wouldn't improve the quality much by increasing the payments, and for the latter that's largely immaterial. Moreover, we really want to attract more of the latter (imho), so I think US Soccer should focus on attracting and retaining that group more.

Agreed on both fronts wholeheartedly...

 

[Phoenix Soccer Dad]

This would undoubtedly increase with your proposal of strict enforcement. In my opinion, that's a worse outcome than the present situation; that is, your proposal would make the situation worse.

Certainly agree about the stupidity of people, but there is an abundance of that around. I would absolutely blame US Soccer if the enact a brain-dead one-sided policy which indirectly causes more escalations.

What I'm suggesting, for reference, is to have a feedback system, so that parents feel like there's some accountability. Several people seem to misunderstand that as "allowing the minority to drive refs from the game"; that's not what a feedback system does. A feedback system does three things, broadly:
- Allows parents/others to express satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and/or concerns with the officiating
- Allows the league(s) to bias selection of referees based on relative ratings, as desired
- Allows parents/others to see the relative ratings for referees (which, among other things, can allow a sort of "reality check" for parents who might otherwise complain a lot); note that this is similar to what some of the more knowledgeable parents might already do on the sidelines (I do this regularly among the team parents for my son's team, as an example)

No part of the above actually removes any officials from games in general. What it does is allows the officiating to potentially get better over time, while allowing an outlet for parents to express frustrations aside from on the sidelines and/or in the parking lots.

The current situation, to stretch an analogy, is like allowing known pedophiles to officiate games, fondle kids openly on the field, and then telling parents that they cannot complain about it or they will be banished from the games, while doing nothing to fix the actual problems. I suggest that if you think about the problem in that context (even if it's a silly analogy), it will help understand why the "sit down a shut up" strategy is so dumb and will never work.

Respectfully disagree here. I've been a ref for 8 years ... have you heard the dumb stuff parents yell? Most of them don't know the rules and/or don't understand how the game works. The value of parent input on referring is roughly zero. Satisfaction / dissatisfaction - let me help you out here ... did your team win? Then you're going to be largely satisfied. Your team lose? Shockingly, your dissatisfaction will be off the charts, it's clearly the ref's fault.

90% of a sideline simply isn't qualified to weigh in on the quality of the referee in the match they are watching. The 10% that are know better and stay quiet.

Good grief.

 

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

The solution is simple: Parents need to shut the fuck up on the sidelines.

I can agree with that.

I once saw a dad run up to the ref and got in his face over a call... DURING a game... not after a game.. DURING a game... yelling at the ref's face and wanted to get into a fist fight...

How is that guy still on the team? Yet he is... If I were a coach, that dad is perma-banned.... someone else can bring the kid to the games...

 

[Orangeteam]

In a game with a full stadium you can't clearly hear individual insults from the crowd. You know when they disagree with something because the tone changes, but thats about it.
A small venue like a club game, or a GA or ECNL finals, the games aren't much more than 100-200 people so it's easier to hear the those who want to protest, or worse.

I'd say if you are a spectator or player that gets reported under this new guideline my guess is you will not have the benefit of the doubt in these cases. Refs will have the upper hand on any infraction filed.

Better behavior is probably the best path

 

[TopesWin]

One of the main issues which leads to bad decision making is being completely out of touch with how the real world works, and living in a delusional fantasy world. People in that state use their view of the world to evaluate how decisions might go, and then are shocked when they make the situation worse.

Here's a potentially helpful thought experiment: think about the last time you were really upset about some perceived governance injustice, and then think if the governing body told the people who were upset to "sit down, shut up, we don't care what you think, we do what we want, your opinion means nothing". Do you really think those people are going to become respectful and positive toward those governing officials after being berated and ignored repeatedly (or perhaps imprisoned, or worse)?

... cause that's what you just said, and if you think about it a little, you might come to understand how dumb and unrealistic it is. People don't work like that. What this policy would almost certainly do is cause escalation, because people would feel like there's no other route to be heard.

Intelligent people, particularly those with any experience in leadership, understand this. We probably could use a couple of those people in US Soccer, before the current situation gets worse, and leads to something more than verbal abuse.

You're one of the most obnoxious coaches I've ever had to watch, and you yell the dumbest shit at the refs any time your team is losing. And that happens A LOT, since you can't develop players for shit. Screaming "run" at your players isn't development, but that's all you're capable of. Your roster craters every season and you have to dupe new families every year. But people are finally starting to catch on: Club team is the weakest team in an low-level league and high school team lost every game. And they used to be so good! You yelled so loudly when you thought your team was going to beat us - it was so fun to watch you shit the bed that night!

Every semi-intelligent parent ran for the exits and the bottom is dropping out. Have fun trying to recruit next year when you're completely exposed.

So yeah, shut the fuck up on the sidelines.

 

[sigmabody]

You're one of the most obnoxious coaches I've ever had to watch...

I'm not a coach. The rest of your comment is pretty stupid in that context.

 

[Zeke]

They getting paid don't they?
I wouldn't call that "giving up their Saturdays"

The adult refs I work with mostly have professional careers. This isn’t their main job, and they do have other places they could choose to be.

The pay is about $50 for a 2 hour time commitment. That’s not enough to put up with some idiot yelling “terrible game ref” because his kid’s team lost.

Fortunately, there are also the kids who say thank you, which helps make up for the lawnchair loudmouths.

 

[Grace T.]

The adult refs I work with mostly have professional careers. This isn’t their main job, and they do have other places they could choose to be.

The pay is about $50 for a 2 hour time commitment. That’s not enough to put up with some idiot yelling “terrible game ref” because his kid’s team lost.

Fortunately, there are also the kids who say thank you, which helps make up for the lawnchair loudmouths.

I mean think about it. You can pull down $20 hr plus benefits working at McDonald’s ($22 hr at in and out). Some private trainers are charging $100 hr these days for private session. Let alone compare the rate to what a plumber or carpenter now makes per hour, let alone a lawyer. Plus you don’t have to put up with the abuse, if you have multiple games per day you don’t have to exhaust yourself, plus all the unpaid trainings requirements and meetings. We get what we pay for.