Surfref
PREMIER
Not someone that should be saying “do you know who I am?” He is just another youth club coach and no one of importance except in his own mind.
Referees - what can we all do to improve the situation?
- Thread starter Paul Spacey
- Start date
Not someone that should be saying “do you know who I am?” He is just another youth club coach and no one of importance except in his own mind.
This would be relatively easy to do really. Just use the Uber system (Uber rates both drivers and riders) where you numerically rate the behavior of the coach and the performance of the referee leaving room for comments. Since we can't have evaluators watching the coaches and refs for every game, you just program an algorithm to pick up certain patterns (I've done something like this for my work in other fields)...enough strikes and you send someone to blind check evaluate it...if they find something the coordinators have a discussion with the coach/ref (referring either for additional continuing education or giving them the option of going on suspension)...additional followup and blind checks on those identified to be "problems" as well as a loss of eligibility to move up in the rankings (either ref level or ABCD coaching license) and suspensions for repeat offenders.
The big objection to this is it might make a referee shortage even more severe but I don't really buy it...if refs don't want to do it because of the abuse there are 2 solutions if you look at this from an economics point of view: lower the obstacles by making refereeing a more pleasant experience and pay them more....keeping refs that don't want to be evaluated because they might not be great is just turning away from the problem and we can always exempt the new 8s if we are shy about scaring off the new recruits.
After this weekend I'm really sold on this idea. Time to do it.
Paul Spacey
SILVER ELITE
You will never get totally unbiased input. But any input is good input when averaged out over time.
Enough ratings will allow the cream to rise to the top and the crap to fall to the bottom. The poorest of everyone/everything will be exposed (including coaches, parents/sidelines and referees). Something has to be done and this seems like a potential step in the right direction. Will it be the ‘solution’ to what we know is a massive problem? No, there isn’t a single solution because the problem is too big. However, any step in the right direction is a good step IMO.
MA0812
SILVER
Late to this thread but I couldn't agree more. Had video of a horrible incident at a G04 Discovery game. League rep at the field and head ref both said we wont look at any video so don't bother showing us or sending it. That option is out.
Just A Dad
SILVER ELITE
a few weeks back my daughter had a CR who made a horrible decision that made the rest of the game miserable for himself. The goalie on my daughters team took out a player. CR came over to the AR and asked if it was in the box our out of the box. The AR said it was outside the box so the CR sets the ball outside the box and the other coach and parents go crazy. After the complaining he changes it to a foul inside the box and moves the ball then are coach yells you can change your mind because the coach is yelling. The CR goes back to the AR and ask again if it was inside or outside the box and the AR says outside the box so the CR moves the ball again outside the box. The rest of the game the other coach was going crazy till the other AR (oldest of the 3) yelled at the coach to shut up and told the CR to card him. The CR had done a good job besides caving to the coaches on the one call and I personally thought are goalie should have been given a red or yellow card but I think he might have just missed seeing the foul and thats why he wasnt confident in his decision.
last weekend he was the AR in my daughters game and one of our players was taken down in the box the CR said no foul. I agreed with the no call but the girl laid on the ground like most forwards do when they are trying to get a call. I looked at the AR and said bet your glad your not the CR this game and he looks at me and laughs and starts telling me how bad he messed up the last time he reffed are game and he lost control.
last weekend he was the AR in my daughters game and one of our players was taken down in the box the CR said no foul. I agreed with the no call but the girl laid on the ground like most forwards do when they are trying to get a call. I looked at the AR and said bet your glad your not the CR this game and he looks at me and laughs and starts telling me how bad he messed up the last time he reffed are game and he lost control.
Surfref
PREMIER
No accent and I have no clue if he played in college.
Surfref
PREMIER
I like the idea of an uber sort of rating. It would probably be fairly easy to develop an app.
Surfref
PREMIER
That is part of the problem. If the referee actually screwed up, then the coach should show the video to the head referee. The head referee should provide some education to the referee. Discussing referee problems with the referee association or tournament head referee should be the coach or managers job. Parents need to stay out of it, because it usually just sounds like they are complaining because their kids team lost. I have heard parents say some comical things while complaining, throwing elbows, foot on the line during a throw in, goal kick not taken within 6 seconds, etc...
Overlap
SILVER ELITE
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 
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.
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
PREMIER
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.
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