To maintain your sanity, just ignore sigmabody. He is a fraud and only on here to spread his propaganda and to let himself feel - if even for a moment - that he knows better than everyone else. He loves to complain about how everyone else does everything wrong and casts himself as the savior of youth soccer, but he's stupid with a fragile ego. So far on this board he has advocated for: -no background checks for refs, so that pedophiles can ref your kids' game, -a clusterfuck "referee complaint system" where soccer moms and dads can register their ill-informed complaints by the thousands every weekend (hey, sigmabody, why don't you be the one who reads all the complaints - a better use of your time than posting here) and - just for good measure, because he knows everything, some tips on how you should do your taxes. Ignore!
NEW Referee Abuse Policy
- Thread starter Lee Robert
- Start date
I think that a good way to resolve it is to provide the coaches some sort of chance to rate and comment on referees after the season or tournament. I think rating refs right after a game is probably not productive as the emotions are probably still raw but definitely give coaches a chance to give their opinions after some time has passed.
The one data point that I think would be important is the availability of referees. If you only have a certain pool of referees to pull from, you really have no choice but to use them even if they are bad.
That's probably a fair compromise. It would at least give a path for feedback, by encouraging the parents to voice their complaints to the coach after the fact, and give a sense that some actions might be taken eventually. It's better that "shut up and accept it", certainly.
As noted before, I don't think that even with a rating system, people would be able to avoid dealing with poor officials, and if the pool is small, you will get what you get. However, at least with some public ratings people could see that (a) you might be getting a lower quality ref just because of availability, and (b) you can see the rating, so you can adjust expectations accordingly. It would also add some transparency for tournaments, for example, where the organizers might claim "high quality officials", but the reality on the field might be far different.
But as you can probably tell, I'm a proponent of more transparency in general, as I think that can solve some of the existing problems, or at least mitigate some of the frustrations.
Lee Robert
BRONZE
I would like to respond to those that have viewed and commented on this post:
Policy 531-9 Misconduct Toward Game Officials has been amended to make the offenses and sanctions clear for the Administrators. The purpose is to provide a safer environment for all the participants.
Policy 531-10 Misconduct of Game Officials is used to report misconduct by Game Officials. When we receive reports against referees we review, hold hearings and issue sanctions.
There is a reporting structure for Coaches and managers; they have always been able to report a problem with a referee to their club, league, referee assignor and/or administrator.
Every Referee Assignor has a rating for their referees based on game performance, game management, fitness,... We have about 100 Referee Coaches and Mentors that observe referees and provide mentoring. In the past referees were assigned based on their rating or skill level. Today, due to the referee shortage and growth of soccer, the assignors just want their games covered. And due to the shortage, mentors are being asked to referee to cover the games.
New referees have to attend the US Soccer Referee Course, Concussion Awareness, Sudden Cardiac Arrest, and attend a 3-hour Referee Preparation Training.
Recertifying Referees have to pay an annual registration fee, complete the following training annually: SafeSport, attend 5 training sessions and pass a Law Test.
And those that want to advance have to pay for and pass three assessments.
You have a some choices:
Become a Referee, it is far more challenging than I could have imagined
Be respectful and let's set the right example for our children.
Ask yourself, how you would like to be treated if you were the referee.
Be part of the solution and help us certify more referees
Here is the link to attend an upcoming referee preparation training: https://calsouth.com/upcoming-referee-education-courses/
Policy 531-9 Misconduct Toward Game Officials has been amended to make the offenses and sanctions clear for the Administrators. The purpose is to provide a safer environment for all the participants.
Policy 531-10 Misconduct of Game Officials is used to report misconduct by Game Officials. When we receive reports against referees we review, hold hearings and issue sanctions.
There is a reporting structure for Coaches and managers; they have always been able to report a problem with a referee to their club, league, referee assignor and/or administrator.
Every Referee Assignor has a rating for their referees based on game performance, game management, fitness,... We have about 100 Referee Coaches and Mentors that observe referees and provide mentoring. In the past referees were assigned based on their rating or skill level. Today, due to the referee shortage and growth of soccer, the assignors just want their games covered. And due to the shortage, mentors are being asked to referee to cover the games.
New referees have to attend the US Soccer Referee Course, Concussion Awareness, Sudden Cardiac Arrest, and attend a 3-hour Referee Preparation Training.
Recertifying Referees have to pay an annual registration fee, complete the following training annually: SafeSport, attend 5 training sessions and pass a Law Test.
And those that want to advance have to pay for and pass three assessments.
You have a some choices:
Become a Referee, it is far more challenging than I could have imagined
Be respectful and let's set the right example for our children.
Ask yourself, how you would like to be treated if you were the referee.
Be part of the solution and help us certify more referees
Here is the link to attend an upcoming referee preparation training: https://calsouth.com/upcoming-referee-education-courses/
Lee Robert
BRONZE
By the way, this past weekend, I mentored 5 fields. 3 fields had no problems, 2 had problems in just about each of their games, so obviously a referee situation. I sent my report to the tournament Admin, they send it to the assignor. In those two fields, the referees were running, in good position, foul recognition and offside decisions were good. In both they failed to handle the complaints and dissent from the coaches and then the spectators. Had they held a proper pregame, included mutual respect and then handled the coaches with a "please coach," these games would have been more enjoyable. If necessary follow up with a quick chat reminding them that we have different viewpoints in the game, "I respect yours, pls respect mine." I will tell you that the people management skill needed by referees is by far the most challenging to obtain. Probably takes 100 or more games to be effective.
RedCard
GOLD
There is a rating system for Coast Soccer League games, both for Fall and Spring seasons. After the game, both coaches/managers and the center referee logs onto the CSL App on their phone to input the score and then after that, there is a 5 star rating for the coaches to rate the center referee and the center referee to rate both coaches. There is a place to put notes for the rating also, so if something happened in the game, you can note it. The SoCal League does not do this but I wish they did.
outside!
DA
It would be great if parents could see the ratings of the coaches by the referees!
RedCard
GOLD
I agree, that would be great. The one thing that CSL does is award a referee that received an average rating of 4.5 to 5 stars for the season a "5-star referee" badge that he/she can wear for a CSL league game (only). Now, while that's good, and can also come back and bite you in the ass cause if the referee is wearing a 5-star referee badge, then that referee should be giving a 5-star performance. I mean, it's only fair....right??? I've been part of a couple of games last fall season where the game went sideways due to the center referee not living up to that badge.
What do you think parents would do with the information?
Based on the games I’ve seen in socal, “cut the ref some slack” is not a very likely outcome. The most likely are “yell at the ref for having a bad rating” and “yell at the ref for not living up to his good rating”.
If you want to see ref ratings, become a ref. Mentors will show up and let you know how you’re doing.
I actually think it could help. While I think it's possible that people might be more frustrated (as you speculate), most of the parents I've interacted with are more likely to give slack to a ref who is "newer", for example. Additionally, there is a psychological aspect of "write it off, this ref is known garbage" which tends to happen in games with a particularly poor official (where anger tends to turn to just more quiet laughing about bad calls, etc., in cases where the kids are not in much danger). On balance, I would think this is likely better; it obviously won't mitigate disrespect for bad officials (nothing will do that, aside from making them improve), but it could reduce the amount of anger on the sidelines.
Case in point: my son's team had an official for the last couple games who was very "card happy". He issued around 8 cards in the first game, including one each for two coaches, where in one case the coach was just trying to direct the CR's attention to the AR's call (the CR carded the coach for yelling at him, then talked to the AR, then carded the other player who had stomped on the opponent, as flagged by the AR and ignored by the CR until the coach yelled at him to pay attention). He issued around 5 cards in the second game also, iirc, including a direct red during half time for a player who said the F-word in frustration after the official didn't allow his team to take a corner before blowing the half-time whistle.
This was an objectively frustrating official, but because the parents knew he was bad going in, there wasn't as much frustration expressed from the sidelines during the second game. There was some laughing and head-shaking for sure, but we knew he was sorta bad, and we knew what to expect (and, in fairness, he was bad fairly equally to both teams in most cases). Furthermore, while he was issuing cards like candy, the game wasn't particularly dangerous, so in the larger sense he wasn't that bad, and I'd probably be okay with him officiating other games personally (compared to some other officials). The key is just knowing what the expect going in, and adjusting your expectations; that can do a lot to mitigate frustrations, at least in my experience.
outside!
DA
I think you may have misread my comment. I want the parents to be able to see the coach ratings to help when choosing which team to play for. I do not think parents should have access to referee ratings.
technically under the guidance generally given refs the f word would technically go straight to a red, though most officials realizing these are kids still working on self control and that the punishments for reds in league are very severe, might forebear. But the ref was technically correct and in the adult game that's a red any day of the week.
p.s. the other side of the coin is when refs chose to ignore or punish with a yellow the n word which even in showing mercy is generally a bad decision for a variety of reasons, primarily game control.
I am surprised by this, but admittedly I don't know what guidance is given to the refs with respect to language on the field. At best, though, that's officiated very unevenly: I've heard plenty of swearing, even from the sidelines, and absent other physical aggression and/or direction at others, I can only recall one other official who gave cards for swearing (and that was a couple years back, and what appeared to be due to a very anomalous official looking to impose her personal feelings on proper behavior and decorum on the players, rather than for any game control purposes).
I suppose I'm somewhat glad that's not the case for any other adult sport that I'm aware of; imagine other professional sports giving penalties for trash talking and swearing on the field. Most teams would get entirely disqualified within minutes, lol.
Orangeteam
SILVER ELITE
Its a red card
Law 12.3 under 'send off offeses"
Law 12.3 under 'send off offeses"
- using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or action(s)
Lee Robert
BRONZE
Here is the page, appears you have to contact your Coach or Team Manager https://www.coastsoccer.com/CSL_5Star_Teams2023.pdf