And it's Presidents Cup. Not a tournament for which the Region can afford to pay to bring in referees from elsewhere, put them up in hotels, feed and supervise them for a week. And just what exactly is at stake in this tournament? I don't mean to say that the games are meaningless but there is a point where the cost of officials gets out of hand. My daughter was once assigned to a low level D1 college game in another state. The cost of her game fee, airfare, hotel and per diem, was over $1,000 and that did not include the cost of the assistant referees or the assignor's fee. IMHO, that's totally out of whack with the importance of a game for which there were less than 200 spectators. I think the same analysis applies here.
Actually, the individual states pay some of the costs to send referees to President's Cup. And then the referees get paid game fees for the tournament. There were probably referees from 12-13 states at that tournament.
But not enough of them to cover all of the games. With travel costs, will the referees from out of state be out of pocket after their game fees?
Presidents Cup has grown significantly in the last five years. They do receive match fees for their work and nearly all expenses are covered for the referees. Hotel, breakfast, and lunch were all covered by the event, travel was covered for the referees by their states, and in most cases, dinner was covered for them by their states as well. All matches had assessors or mentors assigned, and there was classroom instruction for the referees provided by two well known national instructors/referee coaches. Assignments follow the same as the National Championship series. No member of the referee crew is from the same state as either team, they are rotated to prevent seeing the same team more than once, etc. ETA: like the National Championship series, the teams advance beyond this event to the National Presidents Cup tournament in FL. Ten referees were also chosen to represent the Region. All expenses paid (yes, flights too).
I will say that each region functions differently. I know I was on a couple of games where they were teams from the same state I was in. There just aren't enough referees to go around. Plus making assignments on the fly that night based on input from all the D&G's, assessments and mentors feedback is difficult to do. I agree though that they try really hard to make sure that assignments are from referee's from neutral states. As far as dinner being compensated I know my state in our region normally pays a per diem of $25 for food. That per diem can also be used for other items (such as toiletries, laundry detergent, and snacks). They do normally have a 1 state dinner and 1 dinner where it is put on by the host state. Leaving the referee's with around 5 dinners.
I was running a section of club tryouts this past weekend and one of the parents started coaching from the sideline. I turned from evaluating and asked for him to not coach. He kept coaching following up with the ever helpful "What are you going to do about it?". As I started to walk over to him to invite him to the parking lot, a mother walked up to him and said "Don't you recognize him, he is a referee. They get extra credit for throwing parents out".
When I was coaching, I was, of course, also evaluating at tryouts. One dad had brought his son and two friends. When we split the kids up for a small sided scrimmage, they tried to tell us that they only played together. Ah, no. When they were marking one of their friends in the scrimmage, they would blatantly slack off, I assume to try to make their friend look good. After the tryout that day, the dad told us that we had to take all three of them for the same team "Or I'm taking my kids to football." Have a nice life! Those are parents you do not want on your team in the first place, I don't care how good a player they are.
Wow that's beyond dumb. I'd call the kid over and tell them in front of dad that they don't get to be on a team because their father can't behave like an adult.
Today, U12 Boys...Regionals for the right to not go anywhere because you only start going somewhere at U13, at least that's the way one of kids explained it to me..I digress. My game featured two really good teams and a defender was doing his job on an attacker who probably had never been bodied up before, and not allowed to turn, and man marked him to exasperation. The first time he was bodied off, he screamed at me for the foul, the second time, he screamed at the AR for the foul. And with ball out for a throw, I offered to let him go scream at AR2 because he was getting a yellow card anyway! His coach made him apologize to us at the end of the game.
That tryouts exchange reminded me of a T-ball tryout I was "evaluating" way back in the last century. There was one kid whose dad was hovering and telling him what to do at every turn. I walked over to the dad and said "Only child?" He replied, "Who, him or me?" and I said "Well, I would guess both of you." "Huh. You're right." "How about you go sit over there and watch for a while?" "OK."
Saturday, I was assessing at a tournament, sitting between the benches. In the second half, a white team player comes up to sub in. At the next stoppage, the referee acknowledges the sub and the sub starts to trot onto the field. One of his teammates, not the one who will be leaving, tells him that he has to wait off the field until the guy he's replacing has stepped off! I have never EVER heard a teammate tell a sub that they can't enter the field yet. No word about whether the teammate is also a referee or not.
Was it a Canadian team? I was at a showcase type of event, and the team from Windsor didn't want to run on immediately after I acknowledged subs. I told them to not let me ruin them for their regular ON refs. And yes, I know BC is quite a bit farther from metro Portland than ON is from metro Detroit.
It was actually an Oregon team! Yes, this processed is observed much more strictly in other countries. We've let American kids get sloppy about this. We once had a team from Bolivia in this tournament and their subs were absolutely rooted to the turf outside the field until the exiting player had completely left the field.
There has been great improvement here this season in substitution procedures. Most teams still need a reminder - when they barge on the first time I ask them to please wait next time and they almost always do. A few teams though are doing it by the book without being asked.
OR ref here. I usually decide how closely to enforce based on the context of the game. Playoffs? Wait at the half. Regular season? Come on in. Seems to me to be a fair way to stick with what's expected.
So tell me how you define "fair." Law 3.3 "...The substitute only enters: during a stoppage in play. At the halfway line. after the player being replaced has left. after receiving a signal from the referee...."
The phrase that comes to mind is, "What does soccer expect?" In league games, it's more about fun, but as the season progresses, it becomes about more than fun. We/I adjust accordingly. Strict adherence to the rules absent context does the players and the game no good.
The Laws of the Game are written so that teams do not have to negotiate what the rules are going to be today. Leagues/tournaments can and do modify the Laws (e.g. requiring numbers on the player shirts) to make them suitable for their competition. Other modifications imposed solely by the referee only introduce random variation in the way the game is played. "The referee last week......" Players, coaches, administrators want the Laws applied uniformly so they know what to do and what not to do. The flip side of referees making up rules is referees choosing not to enforce certain rules because that referee has a different opinion about how the game should be played than the league administrators, coaches, players or other referees have. Now, yes, I'm probably overstating how strict we should be about applying the Laws. We always need to use good judgment. But the Laws are an internally consistent document and introducing variations always creates the possibility of a situation that the Laws don't cover. Sooner or later, letting a sub on before the exiting player has left will come back to bite you. I've had it happen to me and it created a situation that made me want to find a hole to crawl into and then pull the turf over the opening, one of the most embarrassing mistakes I've ever made on the field.
It is not required in high school to wait so some will get "confused" (or lazy) and just let players run right on when they are back doing USSF or I guess any non NFHS where the laws or rules state the player must wait.
The confusion concerns who is officially a "player". As in when does the entering substitute become the official player, and when does the leaving player cease to be the player of record and become merely a substituted player. This is of course important because sanctions for misconduct differ for players and substitutes (or substituted players). Under the LOTG in a substitution situation, the player remains the player of record until they leave the field and the substitute enters. Bad things can happen if the both the leaving player and entering substitute are on the field at the same time and misconduct occurs. Under NFHS rules, the substitute becomes the player of record as soon as they are beckoned on to the field by the referee. It doesn't matter if the leaving player is still on the field. As soon as the referee waves the new player on, the old player ceases to be the player of record.