Truth in advertising time: As I’ve outlined elsewhere, I am a certified US Soccer Federation (USSF) Grassroots Referee. I’m not the oldest such ref, and like most people my age, I could probably stand to get in better shape. The combination of age and fitness, plus having a kid in soccer, makes for relatively few actual times that I get to ref. [1]I’ve outlined one of my experiences elsewhere on this site. I went to the class primarily to help my son become a ref. He plays. He wants to ref, and I support that.
Seeing a bit of the “behind-the-scenes” of refereeing brings up all sorts of issues that are worth discussing, particularly at a time when there are so few referees available. This week, for example, I have two emails from tournament directors across Georgia looking for referees for soccer games — and I’m not even in any assignors databases! Otherwise, I’m sure that I’d have even more emails to ask me to ref.
My first reaction, of course, is to say, “Are you really sure that you want me to ref?”
There is a balance to be had — one one hand, youth soccer dies without referees. On the other hand, youth soccer needs more qualified referees. And lest you think this is going to be one of those imposter syndrome posts, let me discuss my experience becoming re-certified.
In another post, I’ve discussed that it’s generally easy to become a USSF certified referee. To become re-certified, there are a couple of videos to watch and two quizzes. The first quiz involves changes in the Laws of the Game (yes, that’s the name of the rules of soccer) and the second involves the rule book. Here’s where I have a problem — you only have to get 50 questions right, no matter how many you missed. So I figured, “Well, let’s not study and see just how many questions I can get right without going back over the rules.” Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. In fact, I was told at a couple of times by the computerized quiz, “Are you sure you couldn’t use some coffee?” 😂
Yes, that’s on me. I really should have looked over the Laws first before taking my re-certification quiz. But that’s part of my point — how many questions should I miss … if any … to be allowed to referee soccer? Theoretically, I could get 50% right and get my handy-dandy patch. Actually, I’m pretty sure I could get a smaller percentage right than that as long as I made my 50 questions right. There probably should be a cutoff to ensure that I (or anyone else taking the test) gets a certain percentage right initially. And perhaps a video test would be good. Show me part of a game where someone may be offside, or if there’s an alleged handball, or whether something’s a foul or not. Force me to articulate a reason for my decision and have someone evaluate my reasoning. Make me decide whether a free kick is direct or indirect — or even if I know the difference between the two. [2] I do. But I can’t say that I always knew the difference. For those who don’t know, an indirect free kick has to touch someone else before it can be counted as a goal. Yes, I know that’s labor-intensive. But it should be easy enough to do – all refs go to soccer games either as a ref or as a parent/observer. Have a 30 minute session and give us 5-6 of those types of problems.
My fear is if we don’t, we’ll ironically feed the cycle of parents abusing referees. Parents who [think] they know the rules will jump all over the refs, and in some cases, the parents would be right to do so. I’m not even talking about the close calls – I mean more of the obvious calls (you can’t be offside in your own half, for example, or you can’t be offside on a corner kick).
Perhaps there could be a new rule for all traveling teams – at least one parent on the team must be a certified referee. Or refs could be required to officiate a certain number of games or else they become an associate referee that requires someone to watch over the games they ref. [3] Personally, I’d love that. I need someone to tell me what I’m doing wrong. I know that I’ve told some parents on my son’s team that the “handballs” they yell out really aren’t handballs, according to the latest Laws of the Game.
I wonder: could part of the reason we don’t have enough referees is that it’s too easy to become one?
Notes
| ↑1 | I’ve outlined one of my experiences elsewhere on this site. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | I do. But I can’t say that I always knew the difference. For those who don’t know, an indirect free kick has to touch someone else before it can be counted as a goal. |
| ↑3 | Personally, I’d love that. I need someone to tell me what I’m doing wrong. |