“The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.” -Dale Carnegie With Soooooo many people out there LOOKING to be offended, why not just avoid the issue and pick other battles. (But I hear ya, Really Dad? You are offended I put my hand on you sons back while escorting him from the field? Really? Why and now what?)
Why will a little guy like me jump between two (bigger) guys who are glaring at each other, with hands made into fists? Because they don't really want to fight. Yes, they're mad at the guy but they also know what happens if they do. If they didn't, then they'd already be fighting. My jumping in there let's them each say/think, "I would have kicked your ass, but the referee wouldn't let me." I've also gotten good mileage from getting eye contact with the guy that suddenly wants to fight, for no apparent reason. (This is a different scenario than the "you fouled me so I want to punch you" thing.) Up close and personal eye contact. But I don't yell at him. I start saying something like "Hey, I can tell you're really upset, but I'm sorry. I didn't see it. Tell me what happened." As I do this, I'm walking the guy away from the confrontation, ideally towards his bench. No, I'm probably not touching him, but I could, just to guide him where I want him to go, but he also knows that I want to hear what he has to say, so he's going to stay with me. He'll give me some story about the guy that was marking him and doing stupid, unfair stuff (which I didn't see, but I now know that he did). I particularly try to make sure that the guy tells me the number of the guy that did stuff to him, so I know exactly who did it. When he's done, I'll say something like "Okay. Like I say, I didn't see it. My bad. I'll tell him to knock it off, but, you know I gotta do this." And then I produce the card that he knows is coming. Ideally, it's yellow. The typical response is "Yeah, you're right, ref. Thanks." So then I go talk to the real bad guy, ideally away from other players, and tell him that I didn't see the stuff he was doing, but now I know and I'm going to be watching REAL CLOSE! If he even breathes wrong, he's in the book. If he wants to smirk while I'm saying this, he may just discover that his coach and I know each other from way back and his coach may decide that it's going to be a lot safer if he just takes Mr. Trouble out now. You mean, all adults aren't fools? Life lesson learned. Good to know.
I've weighed in on this before in this here chatrum. I'm a big, physical guy. If two players are starting to go alpha-male on me, I'm jumping in betweeen them. As Patrick says, they're looking for a reason not to fight, or the fists would have already started. When pugilist #3 comes in, I back away and take notes, but as long as it's 1:1, I'm trying to stop things as quickly as I can. If I take an errant blow, that's my fault, not referee assault. I'm not worried about the boogieman of the lawsuit. I'm in the middle of a field with at least dozens, if not hundreds of witnesses. I'm not touching anyone in any way that could be construed as Criminal Sexual Conduct; I'm preventing people from getting hurt. You want to sue, go ahead. See you in court, DB. All that said, and this is the most important part, Just because it works for me, I don't recommend it for you. Maybe you don't have the personality, or the size, or the voice. Whatever. But give me the same courtesy. Just because it's not part of your toolkit for match control doesn't mean that I'm a bad person that will surely be sued into the stone age and go to jail for the rest of my life. Sheesh.
I guess Webb should be suspended for a year then. Not only is he grabbing them at the beginning, notice at 0:35 he grabbed Mikel's shirt and is dragging him. SUSPEND HIM
I can't agree enough. It's about saving face. If you let them go, they'll have to fight to save face. If you get in there in time, they can back off and still save face because the referee made them back off, not their would-be opponents. I've also had success talking to the guy who looks ready to go. Something happened right on the edge of my vision with no clue what it was but it definitely left one player really hot. I went right to him and told him I knew I had missed something but I was watching for it now and to let me take care of it. It settled him right down and I had no issue with him the rest of the match.
Man, and I thought EPL players were smart - all those guys out there and NOONE tries to get a shot on Jose Mourinho? Amazing...
Not sure how serious this post is supposed to be but there is clearly a difference between touching an adult player vs a minor. Just think of it this way, if you are a teacher and a student hits you and you hit them back or grab them forcefully you are still liable to be fired. Not fair and makes no sense but that is the world we live in. You can step between two players fighting you just shouldn't directly interfere, it opens a lot of bad doors.
Well, of course, you can't hit them back but is it really true that you would be fired for grabbing them? I don't work in a school but I do have some family members who do -- plus I stayed in a Holiday Inn last night -- and I've heard them talk about separating fights with physical force. Are they taking a risk with their job? Does this vary by school/state/etc? I am in constant awe of the stupidity we accept sometimes.
The point is that if they are hit they do have a legal right to hit back to defend but not a social right, which is frankly BS. They will be looked down upon for defending themselves and become a liability to the school. I have known teachers that were assaulted by students that were in danger of losing their jobs for putting them in "holds" to subdue them. Luckily they were exonerated.
Whenever there was a fight in my school, the teachers would grab people and use reasonable physical force to separate them. Nobody ever saw a problem with it. Maybe PA is just.. normal?
In Chicago, the Northern Illinois Soccer League (NISL) modifies the rules to remove red cards at U11 and below. (Chicago has a very large and competitive youth club system) Peter Richardson who runs the league talks about the coaches and referees using common sense. I agree with his approach. I have reffed and coached ULittles for many years as I enjoy ensuring that these players are getting the developmental foundation they need and a suitable match environment to get it. (Watching elite u9 players is a treat). I have never seen a DOGSO for ULittles. At the highest skill levels within these age groups, I have seen some cynical play that could produce the possibility of a DOGSO, but I have never seen it...and I have watched more U8 and U9 games that anyone I know. If I have the whistle, and a U9 gets into a skirmish/fight on the field, at a minimum he is going to take a break (timeout) on the sideline. He may even be done for the day if its egregious enough, but it won't include a ceremonial red card. It won't involve playing with a man down (It doesn't make sense in what is already a 5v5 of 7v7 small sided game). It might look like a comment to the coach 'Coach, it looks like this player needs a few minutes to regain his composure.' In every case in which I have done this, there has been complete agreement from both the coaches and parent's sidelines of both teams - no dissent. For the very young player, a referee can enforce the laws and manage the players verbally while collaborating with the coaches. I had a U11 game recently - B level. A forward and defender started fouling each other over a 5 minute period involving 3 times that the ball came to them. I called a foul on the instigator on the 1st interaction. A moment later, I called the foul on the opposite player when there was retaliation. It was becoming clearly that justice (i.e. getting the foul) was having no effect on the conflict. A minute later, when the ball came back into play both played each other instead of the ball with things beginning to escalate into a shoving match as the ball rolled out of touch for a throw. It was clear the players would not be able to de-escalate on their own. A loud whistle with a comment to the effect of , "We not doing this today. Go take a break" was all that was required to make the point and recover the game. No arguments or comments from anyone.