You've become a good ref when ...


By Randy Vogt

You will know that you have become a good referee when:

• After the game, players and coaches go out of their way to say “Good job,” “Great job!” or “You were the best ref we’ve had all season!”

• People say to you, “Could you officiate all our games?”

• Your phone and e-mail account become hot with more and more assignments.

• You are assigned top games.

• You are asked to officiate tournaments out-of-state and maybe even abroad.

• You receive officiating awards from leagues and referee associations.

This means you have succeeded. Congratulations!

Now you come to an important fork in the road. Or as Yogi Berra has said, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it!”

Some successful referees take the correct road. They know that they have succeeded because of their knowledge of the Laws of the Game and their application, their hustle, their positive attitude, their fairness and firmness plus their approachability. And they continue doing all these great things.

Other successful refs take the wrong road. Their success goes to their head and they somehow think the game is now about them.

I have heard these comments about refs:

• “He used to be really good and now all he wants to do is argue with the coaches.”

• “He was one of our top referees but he no longer runs and gives decisions that seem solely to create attention for himself.”

• “He’s a good ref. The problem is, he thinks that he is a great ref and lets everyone know it.”

• “She was a very good referee. Now people don’t take her seriously as her body has become as big as a house.”

• “He was one of our best referees. Now he hardly moves out of the kickoff circle.”

Which road are you going to take?

(Randy Vogt has officiated over 8,000 games during the past three decades, from professional matches in front of thousands to 6-year-olds being cheered on by very enthusiastic parents. In his book “Preventive Officiating” he shares his wisdom gleaned from thousands of games and hundreds of clinics to help referees not only survive but thrive on the soccer field. You can visit the book’s website at www.preventiveofficiating.com/)

Why so few women referees?


By Randy Vogt

In her Youth Soccer Insider column on Aug. 15, Sarah Weld laments the lack of women coaches and refs in youth soccer. It’s an oddity that I’ve noticed and am concerned about as well. The book I authored, "Preventive Officiating," is the only soccer referee book that I know of that uses the pronoun “she” as much as “he” to describe referees and has the same number of female soccer ref models as male ref models.

I cannot write with any great insight as to why there’s a lack of female coaches but would like to offer some reasons and remedies to have more women become and continue as referees.

The hierarchy of FIFA, the USSF and NCAA are all looking to promote good female referees to the highest levels. If the United States did not play in the Women’s World Cup final, chances are that American Kari Seitz would have been given the assignment. She and two American assistant referees, Marlene Duffy and Veronica Perez, wound up officiating the third-place game instead.

One of the referee organizations that I belong to, the Long Island Soccer Referees Association (LISRA), now has a female President, Cathy Caldwell. LISRA is way ahead of the United States in this regard as we had an African-American President, Barrington Lawson, a decade before Barack Obama was inaugurated.

Here are some ideas why females make up nearly 50 percent of soccer players in the United States but are very much still a novelty as referees:

Intimidation. As Sarah wrote, the great majority of youth soccer coaches are men and some of them will try to intimidate a female ref much more than a male ref.

“We lose female refs three times more frequently than male refs due to verbal abuse,” LISRA President Caldwell said. “When I first started, I refereed three games and could not take the abuse from the adults. I called up the assignor, Nanci Apostolides, and told her that I did not want to referee anymore but she convinced me to stick with it. More than a decade later, I’m still refereeing!”

“But just last weekend, I spoke to a women who had taken the referee course but chose not to referee due to the lack of respect and intimidation she witnessed by both coaches and parents,” she added.

I’m aware of some youth soccer coaches saying derogatory comments about a referee (they do not know) based solely on the gender or age of the ref to their players before the game. Do you think those players then will go onto the field and actually respect the ref?

“In addition, many male coaches are uncomfortable with a woman refereeing their games,” Caldwell added. “More than once, I have called a coach to get field directions and inform him that I am the referee for their game and there is a second or two of silence followed by an ‘Oh.’’’

Females tend to view soccer in more social terms than men. As a referee advances, he or she will officiate with other officials -- one ref and two assistant refs. But generally the first games of a career are the boys U-7 intramural game or the girls U-10 travel team match that uses just one referee and two club linesmen (that the teams provide to help out). I’ve found that females are more excited to officiate with their friends than males. Years ago, as I was about to ref a girls U-15 game, I heard the girls talking with excitement about which of their teammates they would be officiating with in intramural games later that day. Unfortunately, that club was the exception as most intramural games are officiated by one ref. No matter your gender, refereeing by yourself can be very lonely.

“I ask the assignors to pair up the few women in the chapter with me as we have such a good time officiating together,” Caldwell commented. “When I work with other women I find an immediate bond.”

Lack of open bathrooms in youth soccer. Generally, the lack of bathrooms is not a problem for the female player who is playing one game a day or the female assistant referee who (at least on Long Island) is often officiating one game per day. But it’s a huge problem for the female ref who is refereeing 2-4 games per day. Take into account that the officials should be at the field 30 minutes before kickoff and a ref is often spending 5-6 hours at a soccer field.

So what do female refs do if there’s no bathroom? They’ve told me that they do not drink water at all, a very unhealthy choice, or take time between matches to drive to a building with a bathroom, delaying the next game.

The great majority of youth soccer games that I have officiated did not have a bathroom at the field. But the times, thankfully, are changing. Years ago, youth soccer was often played at schools (closed on weekends) and also sometimes at parks (with open bathrooms). Many youth soccer clubs now maintain their own soccer complexes with bathrooms. If they did not build a bathroom, they bring in a few port-a-potties, not a very good option for either gender, but particularly for women. I’ve never heard men talk about whether the port-a-potties are clean but it’s a frequent topic of conversation among women at soccer games.

Summarizing, if youth soccer clubs and leagues get rid of verbally abusive coaches and used their resources to have three officials for all games plus build and maintain bathrooms, the number of refs would increase but particularly on the female side.

Beckenbauer group proposes rule changes
Reuters


A task force led by former German international Franz Beckenbauer has recommended changes in the offside rule and punishments for red cards. Beckenbauer said definitions of active and passive offside are too confusing, and sending off a player for a penalty-area offense that also mandates a penalty kick is too severe. Both proposals are likely to go before the next meeting of the IFAB, soccer's rule-making committee, in March.

"We have a situation with active and passive offside at the moment, I think we should stay away from complicated expressions, we should go back to making it more simple, not like it was at the beginning but somewhere in between," says Beckenbauer, who won a World Cup with West Germany in 1974 and coached West Germany to its triumph in 1990.

"In my time it was very simple, offside was offside, it didn't matter where the ball was. It's a nonsense, it's too complicated."

Beckenbauer believes only a deliberate handball on the goal line or a violent foul should be punished by a red card if a penalty kick is awarded, "If it's a simple foul in the penalty area, where you try to get the ball but are a second late, a penalty and yellow card are enough," he said. "If it's a violent foul, which would have been a red card anywhere on the field, then it this case its a penalty and a red card."

By Randy Vogt

The referee can overrule the assistant referee but the assistant can never overrule the ref. The assistant is to assist the referee and not insist instead.

We have a situation in which the ball has gone over the touchline near the assistant referee, who indicated that it is blue’s throw-in. However, the AR did not see the last bounce off a blue leg so it should be red’s throw-in instead. The referee should blow the whistle and indicate that it’s a red throw by pointing the direction that red is going. The ref should also say something nice to the assistant such as, “Thanks, Bob, but you were screened when the ball last came off blue so it is red’s throw.” The assistant should then point the flag in red’s direction.

A referee should not overrule the AR often, otherwise the officiating crew will not be working as a team and the players will realize that the ref has no confidence in his or her assistant -- so why should the players?

While overruling the assistant may be necessary on one or two occasions during the match when the ball is out of play, it is absolutely dangerous when the ball is in play.

When an assistant’s flag goes up to signal an offside or foul, players tend to stop, even if they have been told to play the referee’s whistle, not the assistant’s flag.

It’s a lesson that I learned the hard way while refereeing a college game two decades ago. A red player headed the ball in the general direction of a teammate in an offside position. The assistant made the mistake of raising his flag immediately and the blue defender momentarily stopped. From my angle, I could see that the red player was probably dribbling the ball rather than passing it so no offside should have been called. My interpretation was in conflict with the assistant’s.

The player recovered the ball without his teammate playing it, dribbled to the goal and scored. A relatively easy game became difficult from that point on as the blue team thought that I allowed an offside goal. Clearly, the assistant and I did not work as a team on this important call.

As soon as the flag was raised, I should have blown the whistle and given the offside as it was not clear whether it was a pass or dribble at that point. I should have gone with the AR’s interpretation rather than telling him to lower the flag.

The bottom line is that the only time that a referee overrules the AR while the ball is in play is if all 22 players on the field know that the AR is clearly wrong.

Let’s take this a step further and mention a boys under-16 game in which I was the AR and the shoe was on the other foot. Both the other assistant and I were well positioned with the second-to-last defender throughout the match to flag for offside. Yet, the referee decided to whistle for offside when we kept our flag down on five different occasions -- two in my half of the field, three in the other AR’s half. The game became an absolute disaster! Three players of the losing team were sent off near the end of the game for using abusive language when they cursed the referee.

Let me also describe two instances during college games from a number of years ago in which MLS refs (who should know better) created problems for the officiating crew by overruling ARs during the course of play, giving the impression that they did not have the confidence in that AR.

The first example is a ball was played at midfield to an attacker who was onside. But she could not get to the ball as the defender pushed her 10 yards from me as soon as the ball was passed. I twirled the flag in my right hand, signaling the defense committed a foul. The ref signaled for me to lower the flag, which I did. The defender who intercepted the pass after the push played the ball upfield and the ball was in the back of the net 10 seconds later. Loud dissent followed from the other team, who had seen my flag. At halftime, we talked about my decision and the other assistant referee, with a more panoramic view of the field, had seen the foul too and questioned the ref why he had overruled me. The ref’s answer was that he did not think a foul had occurred. He apologized.

The second example involved a pass inside the penalty area. At the time the ball was played by an attacker, the ref standing nearby thought all attackers were in onside positions. The ball deflected off a player to an attacker near the goal. The other AR’s flag went up for offside. The ref told him to lower the flag as the defense questioned why the ref overruled the AR. Thankfully, the shot was saved by the keeper. The ref and AR discussed it later and the ref thought that the ball deflected off the defender and since he believed all attackers were onside at the time the ball was originally played by an attacker, offside should not be given. Yet an attacker was standing next to that defender so it certainly could have been played by an attacker to a teammate in an offside position near goal.

In both games, goals were later scored in tight offside situations with the overruled AR and loud dissent followed. Not simply because the disallowed goal was incorrect -- replay would prove it was right. But because the ref had shown no confidence overruling that AR in close decisions before the goal.

(Randy Vogt has officiated over 8,000 games during the past three decades, from professional matches in front of thousands to 6-year-olds being cheered on by very enthusiastic parents. In "Preventive Officiating," he shares his wisdom gleaned from thousands of games and hundreds of clinics to help referees not only survive but thrive on the soccer field. You can visit the book’s web site at www.preventiveofficiating.com/.)

By Randy Vogt

A soccer player's basic uniform consists of a shirt, shorts, socks, shinguards and footwear. All players should have their shirts tucked into their shorts, including goalkeepers, and shinguards must be completely covered by the socks. A preventive officiating technique is to make sure that the goalies are wearing shirts that contrast with both teams before the match, rather than realizing it at kickoff.

The footwear will generally be cleats, and the referee must check the bottoms to make certain that they are not dangerous, such as having sharp edges. Players may not participate without footwear. However, a goal counts if scored by a player who temporarily lost a cleat.

According to the rules, shinguards must “provide a reasonable degree of protection.” Players cannot use shinguards that have been cut in half.

For improper equipment, such as earrings, the referee hopefully spotted any jewelry before the game while checking the teams and no player is wearing it on the field. But if a player wears jewelry on the field, play does not need to be stopped. Instead, the ref waits until the next stoppage in play, then tells the player to leave the field to correct equipment. A substitute can replace the player wearing jewelry. The player with jewelry is allowed to reenter the field when the ball is out of play and the ref has checked that the equipment has been corrected.

Medical alert jewelry or clothing required by a player’s religion may be worn only if the referee does not consider it dangerous and it does not give the player an unfair advantage while playing. Medical alert jewelry can often be made safe by wrapping it with tape with the necessary information still showing.

Regarding uniforms, should a player remove his jersey when celebrating a goal, that player is cautioned for unsporting behavior. For the caution to be given, the shirt need not be completely taken off; all that is needed is that the bottom of the shirt to be raised to the bottom of the chin. Players who raise jerseys to display slogans, advertising or messages are cautioned as well.

Regarding arm and/or hand casts, they must be properly covered in sponge and not be dangerous to others for that player to participate.

For complete knee braces, manufacturer’s padding comes with each brace and should be worn over it so that there are no sharp edges, which can be dangerous. Some players do not like to wear the padding as they believe it limits their mobility. Have them wear the manufacturer’s padding over the brace so they can play.

Some leagues, especially youth ones, prohibit players with casts or knee braces from participating. Ask about this before going to the field.

Instructions to Teams?
When checking the teams, many referees, particularly new ones, make the mistake of telling them how the game will be called.

Saying things such as “When the goalkeeper has the ball, you leave her alone, otherwise I’m going to call a foul” or “Gentlemen, I heard that you don’t get along with the other team so I’m going to call a tight match” or any other such instructions is a bad idea and can open a can of worms.

After all, as soon as the ball is legally in play near the keeper and you don’t call a foul, the keeper’s team will complain that you contradicted yourself. Or as soon as you don’t call a perceived foul in a game that you said that you were calling tight, players will complain. Besides, who told you that those teams do not get along?

(Randy Vogt has officiated over 8,000 games during the past three decades, from professional matches in front of thousands to 6-year-olds being cheered on by very enthusiastic parents. In Preventive Officiating, he shares his wisdom gleaned from thousands of games and hundreds of clinics to help referees not only survive but thrive on the soccer field. You can visit the book’s website at www.preventiveofficiating.com/)

By Randy Vogt

Abuse from the sideline is a very sad component of some youth soccer games. Many soccer refs quit during their first two years of officiating with verbal abuse from the touchline being the No. 1 reason for quitting.

If all of us understood that referees are human beings who make mistakes and have feelings like everybody else, plus that coaches and spectators are role models for their own children, so many of the discipline problems associated with youth soccer would go away. And your league’s Arbitration Committee would be about as busy as the Maytag repairman.

My Soccer America column in August 2010 was on how referees control the coaches who need to be controlled. Coaches only have the ability, per the Laws of the Game, to give tactical instruction from the technical area and that is it. It goes on to state that coaches “must behave in a responsible manner.” Certainly, for a ref to allow a coach to give a running criticism of the officiating hurts game control. Allowing constant criticism from a coach (or anybody else) contributes to an environment in which the players stop playing soccer and begin to focus on what the ref is whistling, which leads to more robust challenges and more vocal dissent.

I have also learned that referees who control problem coaches have a much easier time with that same coach should their paths ever cross again as the coach knows that he or she will not be allowed to dissent much at all.

Coaches are part of the equation of touchline abuse but what about abuse from the spectators? Many spectators have absolutely no idea what the rules say, especially in youth soccer, and the only soccer games that they have ever seen are their son’s or daughter’s. The great majority of problems with parents are avoided by officials who hustle, smile, are approachable, get calls correct plus briefly explain decisions that need to be explained.

Over the course of an officiating career, a referee will come across that rare human being who has very little experience with the game yet thinks he or she is an authority on the rules and does not respect the ref’s decisions or whatever brief explanation the ref may give. Just smile and move on.

But what if that spectator continues to yell? Once the ref figures out which team the spectator is rooting for, he or she could seek that coach’s help to control the spectator. Many youth leagues now require that the coach control unruly spectators. When a coach has been instructed by the referee to quiet the team’s parents, the coach can send over an assistant to deliver the message or be forced to deal with the parents while the game is stopped.

If the spectator(s) continue the poor conduct, the coach receives a yellow card (should the league want coaches to be shown the actual card) and later a red card if the poor conduct continues. Before it gets to that point, the ref explains to the coach that the game could be terminated if the conduct persists. Should the poor conduct persist, the referee terminates the game and files a report.

The referee should not confront the spectator as this will only add fuel to the fire. Thankfully, spectator behavior rarely gets to that level. I can only recall abandoning one of my games because of poor spectator behavior.

The league might have adopted a Zero Tolerance policy, which governs the behavior of coaches and spectators toward game officials. It is imperative for the ref to know if a Zero Tolerance Policy is in force for the game and how that league interprets zero tolerance.

Yes, some people take youth soccer way too seriously and one unfortunate consequence of this verbal abuse leads to the referees remaining often being overworked on weekends. I started refereeing when I was 16 years old and obviously stuck with it. But it struck me as odd when some adults 2-3 times my age at that time showed less maturity at a soccer game than the players a few years younger than me. I still see this lack of maturity in some of the adults today.

As Jim Tunney, who officiated in the NFL for 31 years, once stated, “My definition of a spectator is a person who yells at me for missing a subtle hold in the interior line and, after the game, cannot find his car in the parking lot.”

(Randy Vogt has officiated over 8,000 games during the past three decades, from professional matches in front of thousands to 6-year-olds being cheered on by very enthusiastic parents. In Preventive Officiating, he shares his wisdom gleaned from thousands of games and hundreds of clinics to help referees not only survive but thrive on the soccer field. You can visit the book’s website at www.preventiveofficiating.com/)