I can assure you that the coed adult rec leagues in our area are not chill. When they have the tournaments a few times a year where teams from these leagues in different nearby cities participate, there’s usually multiple games that get terminated due to mass confrontations
Your job, as a ref, in co-ed adult rec, is to find the hyper-competitive douche bag and throw him out. The players are there to have a little fun, work up a sweat, and go have a few beers after, not to get selected for the National Team.
I have been disappointed that our adult co-ed summer league disappeared in Covid. IIRC, we had seven divisions and the players had sorted out which division they should play in. First division was all at least former high school varsity players, maybe one-third former college players and one team had a woman who had played in WPSL the previous year. (She played center mid and everything went through her.) Seventh division? Most people who had never played soccer before at any level, not even recreational youth. The key, in my opinion, was to just get the first foul called and thereby set a tone for the game. It was also wise to remember who came with whom. If their girlfriend/wife was fouled, you had to watch who was going to retaliate. Well, I also saw a wife retaliate on a guy who had fouled her husband a minute earlier. It was always a tell when one person gave you two player cards, theirs and their significant other's. I can only remember one red card in an adult co-ed game. Guy who got fouled is verbalizing his frustration with the opponents. An opponent, not the one who had committed the foul, took two steps towards the guy and just flat out punched him in the face. I'm less than five feet away, when pow! right in the nose. I popped the red card he walked off and we waited until he left. His team was apologizing for the rest of the game and afterwards. The biggest referee problem was tracking who had scored. There was a two goal limit per player and the league did not require numbers on the shirts. One time, two players were attacking in the penalty area, one with the ball. All three defenders converged on the player without the ball, leaving the guy with the ball alone. He felt it was somehow unfair that the defenders knew he had already scored twice and the other attacker hadn't. (The league rule was that, if you kicked the ball into the goal when you had already scored twice, it was a goal kick and a yellow card.)
Absolutely right, there are quite a number of players in the league who definitely take the league too seriously. In fact the guy who I red carded, he had a reckless challenge performed on him, then he got a dissent yellow, and then the straight red. So he was involved in three of the five misconduct incident. He was definitely a problem and I should have gotten rid of him a lot sooner than I did. I was too lenient about dissent. Hopefully the league manager contacts me so I can suggest a suspension for him
I’ve actually had a handful of games over the years need to be ended due to mass confrontations. The problem is twofold. You have tryhards who treat the league like USOC qualifying who play too aggressively, dissent too much, get into players faces. Then you have the players who treat the league what it is, but then get really upset if they get fouled or any contact. Both of them can cause issues Then you have the added problem of coed leagues where people treat the male-female challenges ridiculously. Two red cards and mass confrontations have been in my games because a female players teammates took offense to a male player doing something extremely minor
That’s a dangerous path to walk. Our job as referee is to enforce the LOTG. Punishment isn’t part of that. Let the league decide appropriate punishment on their own.
Once a week, I officiated an unaffiliated town adult league a few years for several seasons. It was an easy $120 for an 80 minute night game whenever I wasn't officiating elsewhere. The guy who led it knew me from an indoor league and wanted someone who was recognizable and could relate to adult players. The first 2 years, everything was fine. The following season they started adding players who thought they were trying out for the National Team and it wasn't a friendly environment any longer so I stopped doing it. To maintain my Grade 7, I had to do a minimum of 20 competitive affiliated adult games a year. My man management and fitness improved as a result of these matches but nowdays I hardly do any. I don't miss games starting late where I have to inform everyone that my watch starts at 9:00 a.m. regardless of when the match actually kicks-off since I have other matches later that day.
Once a week, I officiated an unaffiliated town adult league a few years for several seasons. It was an easy $120 for an 80 minute night game whenever I wasn't officiating elsewhere. The guy who led it knew me from an indoor league and wanted someone who was recognizable and could relate to adult players. The first 2 years, everything was fine. The following season they started adding players who thought they were trying out for the National Team and it wasn't a friendly environment any longer so I stopped doing it. To maintain my Grade 7, I had to do a minimum of 20 competitive adult games a year. My man management and fitness improved as a result of these matches but nowdays I hardly do any. I don't miss games starting late where I have to inform everyone that my watch starts at 9:00 a.m. regardless of when the match actually kicks-off since I have other matches later that day.
For a long time adult men's soccer disappeared in our state leaving a single adult coed 8v8 indoor "rec" league as the only outlet for most. It was not chill and not laid back. It got even more heated when the company running the local adult kickball/softball/cornhole said "hey, let's take over soccer too!" and quickly realized they were over their heads. I played for a few years. Generally the teams would be 8 guys (so the more out of shape could get breathers), and every team would have the minimum 2 girls and your 2 girls had damn well be good and reliable and fit enough to play 60 minutes. We found a couple who played Division I and were competitive enough to show up every game. And they would kick the shit out of people. One of our women absolutely clobbered a guy and took off with the ball, he whined at the ref and the ref said "I'm not making that call on the best player in the league." The guy got all puffed up and said "well, I don't know if I'm the best player..." and the ref looked at him and said "not you, her." Every season some new team or two would sign up thinking "hey, soccer, that will be fun!" and drop out 2 matches in after some 15-0 defeats and a fair few injuries. Matches averaged four or five yellows and it would be a miracle if the games ended 8v8. At some point someone realized that this was absolute madness and started a men's 8v8 indoor, and I think an 11-a-side league has cropped up. I aged out of being competitive years ago, but from what I hear it has calmed down.
I've not heard that rule before and it sounds crappy from all aspects. Could the attacker kick it off the keeper? Could the keeper 'accidentally' parry the a ball into the net? I know there are obvious ways to decide what counts, but a made up rule is going to manipulated. There must be a better way. In college intramurals we had a rule that a male player only had 5 consecutive touches on the ball. It stopped them from dribbling the field or even the last 20 yards before a shot. It wasn't much of an issue when I was playing. 5 touches in most situations is a lot. Refereeing, however, it was very annoying because all game long I'd be saying in my head, "one, two.....one.....one two three four...wait, that's a woman.....one, two....was that a touch by the defender? Oh good, someone else touched it.....one....two...." The entire game! It was funny to see players standing around yelling at their teammates to come touch the ball for them because they ran out of touches. They just end up waiting for the defender to barely touch it and then steal it back.
My experience was that, once someone had scored twice, I would remind them that they had their two. A teammate would always confirm that to them, so the player with two would drop back and play defense. Just passing around (literally and figuratively) the scoring opportunities, rather than let the one player be a ball hog the whole game.
These low level adult leagues sure do come up with some interesting rules and regulations. We also had the issue where players don’t show up until game time so games start late, then players got upset when we cut the half lengths down, so now it’s in writing that the clock starts exactly at kickoff time for 45 minute halves. Then we have the “5 players must be female” rule, but if the team doesn’t have enough the other manager has to allow more male players, but then that would cause problems, so I got in writing that for every female player fewer than 5, the team has one fewer player on the field, ex. If they only have 4 female players they can only have 10 total, 3 female players 9 total, etc
Similarly when my sister played high-school ball she was on the JV team for one of the top teams in the state (Hope Solo played for their cross-town rival). The team had self-enforced rules that after they were up by 5 shots could only be with the off foot and after they were up by 10 (a thing that happened regularly enough to need a rule) shots could only be headers. I remember watching my sister play once and a teammate scored her first goal of the season but it was after the score was 5+ and she didn't use her off foot. The team gave her the deserved congrats but with a smile on her face the coach subbed her out as the penalty for not scoring correctly. She subbed her back ion after a few minutes, just long enough to make the point.
I love the "Game time is forfeit time." Opponents MAY give up to 15 minutes to the other team to field a full team but is under no obligation to do so. Those of us that are smart enough to know the standings later in the season can ask the, "Do you want to give any time?" question in a slightly leading way if we want to go home. Additionally, 9 is minimum to start, then LOTG take over. That prevents a game kicking off 11 v 7 and being a slaughter or a large margin before the team fills in resulting in a mess of a game. Last spring I had a game after an assessment game and would be replacing the referee getting assessed from the first game for the second game. One of the teams had been at risk of not having 9 to start but the manager knew the situation. He 'found' a 9th player, borrowed two (not typically allowed), and played just hard enough to make the game competitive but still lost 1-0 so the team that should have had a forfeit didn't get pissed and file a protest.
I haven't had a lot of teams playing short lately. Last week, we had a team with 10 players at scheduled kickoff ask if they could delay the start for a few minutes. Their goalkeeper wasn't there and nobody wanted to draw the short straw and have to play in goal. It was a nice day, we didn't even ask the other team and about five minutes later, the keeper showed up. O-30 1st division.
My apologies if this is too political for this forum, but I wonder if other refs are feeling the same way and what we plan to do about it. The election results make me want to quit. This election has further normalized bullying, a lack of restraint, and a lack of reason. If more than half the country is OK with someone who taunts his way BACK into the White House after committing what should be a series of red-card offenses in daily life, how are we supposed to expect anything other than abhorrent behavior from parents, coaches and players? That -- and what action do we take when ICE or the US military starts showing up at our games? Again -- apologies for bringing politics in here, but I can't help thinking this is going to affect our work.
Yeah, this is a bad story in my mind too. My wife's floor at her hospital has seen similar changes in bullying and lack of restraint, and can point back to 2016 as the start of it. Best we can hope for is sympathetic assignors that back us when we need to use more yellows and reds. Reminder to deal only with the coach when it comes to these issues. Even if it is the coach themselves, you'll be able to write a report with confidence.
Sadly, he’s 100% right. I had the same conversation with my wife today. It’s not only OK to be an outright jerk, it’s actually encouraged. Wish it wasn’t the case, but it’s reality.
No, my life doesn't revolve entirely around politics. But if politicians, from either party at any level, demonstrate that uncivil behavior is OK, that will filter down into the people that we interact with. Just like it does from any other celebrity (and I use the word loosely). People emulate what they see as normal. It has nothing to do with the person's politics, but their behavior. Or maybe I'm just the old guy yelling, "Get off my lawn." I hope not, because that's not civil either.
We as referees are not going to be receiving more dissent or poor treatment because of who the President is. I mean come on, seriously. A lot of referees talked about having the worst treatment they’ve ever had after Covid because of people being stuck at home forgetting how to interact with others or whatever. That’s understandable, not this. Plus, as referees seem to continue to forget, we have tools to deal with crap treatment. We can give yellow cards, red cards, abandon matches. If things get worse, just use your tools earlier and more often. Bring self defense items with you on the field to protect yourself. Whatever. Referees do and always have been treated like absolute shit. It’s never going to get better, and it’s tough to get worse unless we just start getting physically assaulted all the time. Politicians aren’t affecting your refereeing environment. It’s always been bad. Look at PRO tweets about referee abuse and commenters who openly support referee assault because they think the referees are bad at their jobs. It’s insanity
It's less about who is president and more about the when/where/why etc. of that person's becoming president. Or local official, or bystander at a soccer game. Or player in a soccer game. What is allowed is encouraged, and the bar for tolerable behavior has reached bottom and is starting to dig.