Officials Ethics, what to do? Help!

Depends on how you were involved with the match. If you were a crew member, I would first confront the referee about it and give him the opportunity to make it right. If you weren't, or if you've already done what I suggest, I would contact the league's A&D chair and offer supplemental information. Let the league decide how to handle the situation, but give them the info needed to do so.

 

This rings true. If you are a member of the crew you have more responsibility to see that the right thing is done. I am hesitant to say more without more details.

"Lying" is pretty vague and I don't want to speak much more without the rest of the story.

 

You didn't give us any idea of what your role was in this situation. You have every right to offer the authorities your information on what occurred during the game, but don't expect that it will be taken as the unbiased truth. Stick to the facts, and understand that unless you were glued to the hip of either the coach or the referee you probably do not know all that was said or done.

 

Based on your posting history, you're a coach. Were you the coach who was dismissed, or his assistant? Be a little more forward with the facts of the situation if you could.

 

Misconduct by game officials is handled under USSF policy 531-10. In most states, that means making a professionalism complaint to the state's adult soccer association. The state association may then refer the complaint to the state referee committee, depending on their standard policy. If the state chooses to pursue the matter, they must holding a hearing and provide due process to the referee, including the right to have time to prepare a defense and the right to counsel.

Yes, despite how much we want to feel good about ourselves, there are referees who do things that are unethical, both on the field and off. We have had to go so far as to dismiss someone from the Federation, which means that they can't play, coach, referee or administer the game at any level sanctioned by USSF and, therefore, anywhere in the world connected with FIFA.

 

If you were part of the referee crew you should write a supplemental game report 100% factual as to what happened. If you did not first hand see and hear what happened say so. If you did not first hand see/hear then your report would be very short - like "I did not see or hear anything directly related to the sending of of the coach from team X in the X minute of the match."

If you were part of the referee crew I can not imagine you knowing the referee was falsifying a report and not saying anything at the time. If the referee changed their story from game time to the time the report got submitted then you have that to report even if you did not see or hear events for the actual dismissal. Something changed from what you thought happened to what was reported so as a member of the crew you have the responsibility to report that if it is the case.

If you are a team official you have your official channels to report what you saw and heard, and should be able to present your case at the coach's hearing.

If you are the coach who was dismissed then the "lying" is your opinion of the event and most certainly you will have the opportunity to present your side of the event at your hearing.

 

Well stated, but very few, if any leagues that I know of, offer an appeal of a red card suspension and there is no hearing, unless we're talking referee assault or abuse.

 

I am a referee who has been accused of lying (not just exaggerating, but fabricating an incident) in a match report to justify the sending off of a player. The coach didn't see the incident, so he assumed that I made it up, because his angel of a player would never commit violent conduct. Now, nothing ever came of it, because most people have the common sense to realize that I'm probably not going to just randomly send a player off in a youth game for no reason at all and then make one up later.

But my point is, bias creeps in, so I hope you can note the difference between "I have a different opinion on this incident" or "I did not see the incident" and "the referee falsified the report". That said, if the referee objectively and intentionally misreports the facts, I think reporting it to the league would be an important thing to do.

 

The incident was for a coach dismissal not a red card.

Cards may be appealed here and many red cards get a D&P hearing as well (speaking for my experience in Georgia).

 

Too many.

 

Wow. SOP everywhere else that I've seen is that the league's rules are 'a red card's a red card and there is no protest or appeal allowed. You sit the prescribed number of games, period.' If people protest a lot of the red cards, you must have a very dedicated group of people that are willing to conduct hearings.

In high school soccer, red cards can be protested. However, there is no hearing. The protest is automatically granted if the school's principal and the referee assignor both agree to overturn the one game suspension and the fine. We actually had a case two years ago where the assignor was willing to overturn the card but the principal was not! If memory serves, the number of cards successfully protested each year can be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. (The typical reason for overturning them is a referee whose game report says something like "I sent him off for dissent.") Baseball, on the other hand, seems to protest every ejection and roughly 3/4 of them are granted.

 

Why so vague? What did the coach do, and how, exactly, did the referee lie about it?

And, this being the referee forum, you should provide a credible reason that the referee would lie. Most of us will have a pretty hard time believing that a referee would lie to create a confrontation and more paperwork for themselves without some sort of reason.

 

Why would the referee lie? A valid question because, in the experience of almost all referees, there is no reason for it. But let me suggest some things that I've seen come up:
the referee made a mistake about what he saw, but didn't want to admit his mistake so he filled in "facts" to support his decision
the referee was not neutral and wanted one team to win
the referee wanted a payback for the player's behavior in a previous game
the referee wanted a payback for the coach's behavior in a previous game
the referee had issues from a prior game in which the referee and coach were playing against each other
the referee has off field issues with the coach or player, such as the referee's brother was fired from his day job by the coach who was his brother's boss.
and on and on. Very rare, but I've seen stuff like this happen. Not saying that's what happened here, because I don't know anything about this situation. Accusations of referee bias are just plain wrong or highly exaggerated 99% of the time they are made. It's the 1%.....

 

I think we simply need to wait for the OP to chime in and give us more info and background here.

And of course, the OP's role in the events.

What happened?
What did the Referee USSF report say happened?
In what role does OP know either of the above. (Referee Crew Member, Coach in Question, Team Staff, Spectator,...)

Side bar: I've never heard of technical staff dismissal being used to reduce team points. I've only seen card accumulation points doing that. Is this unusual?

 

I'm fairly sure we do it in Georgia youth soccer. I trust my Georgia brethren will correct me if I'm wrong on that.

 

Had an incident where I ended up stopping a game for almost 10 minutes waiting for a guilty party on a bench to come forward (It was that, abandon game or face a riot on the pitch). Coaches/Team manager all politely but 100% positive that what was said could not have come from any of their players. Kid finally comes forward at the end of the ten minutes, in his dress clothes (player #20 on State Cup match) and I wonder to myself.. "sacrificial lamb?"

Two weeks later I run into the coach again and ask him about it. He shakes his head with a sad look and reports the kid fessed up completely after the game and was suspended from team for remainder of season.

But NO ONE on that team believed what the official crew had heard at the time.

 

Given what I suspect was the nature of the offense by the highlighted above, almost 10 minutes is an absolute eternity. "Captain, here is what we heard from your bench....you've one minute to produce the guilty party for appropriate punishment or this game is abandoned/suspended with full details to follow in my game report. I'll be waiting over here" Of course, you or the fellow crew member have to be 100% certain that it came from the bench.

 

Currently coach or team official action does not affect the team points however there was a change at the last AGM where there is no "grace" for point reduction. Used to be points were not deducted at all unless they accumulated to 5 or more so there may have been a provision to include coach/team official misconduct as well. With the change any points for cards will be deducted.

 

Agree 100% if I heard it, but it was heard by a ESL AR with a reputation of being a bit of a hothead. The other fact is that the Latinos/African Americans were ready to brawl and thankfully is was blazing hot and both teams were happy to go and grab drinks. Perhaps I was a bit too patient, but proof in this pudding was a successful result.

 

Haven't read all of the responses yet but thought I'd share what happened to my AR this week. Important district HS game, 3 vs. 4. AR1 was in the middle for the girls game with same coach. Boys game a few calls don't go the coach's way so he blames the AR (even though they are my calls). Second half his forward gets beat on the ball and falls, no foul what so ever. Less than 2 ft from AR1. As forward is on the ground defender accidentally steps on his hand. He screams for a foul and my AR explains no foul he's on the ground and it was an accident. Forward stays on the ground so I stop play. Soon as I do he pops up, tells my AR to "go to hell" and walks over to his coach and says "The linesman said something to me". Coach goes ballistic. I know this didn't happen. I calm down the situation and we play the game. After we talk about the incident as a crew. I explain that sound works just like sight. My view of offside looks completely different than his. By the same token the coach knew my AR said something (even though what he said was there's no foul let's play) but didn't know what exactly. His player filled in the mental blanks with something fictional but plausible to the coach. And that's all it took.

 

And the lesson there is what?

Is "Go to hell" said directly to an AR worthy of a caution in a HS game?

 

Yeah looks like i lost track of my point somewhere along the way. Two points:

1) unless you are right there what you think you saw or heard can be very different.

2) it is important understand why a coach would think he heard you say something when you didn't and to not let it effect you.

Oh and yes the player got a card for dissent as did a teammate who them called the AR a pissed off little child. Coach got his first "tell"

 

At least, imho. You could make a case for send off for abusive language if that's what the game needed.

 

Yeah, maybe in one of these Christian school games I find myself doing lately ...