U-19/High School, preseason scrimmage match. White team handles the ball in the attacking 1/3, ref doesn't see (or maybe he believes it to be inadvertant), and the play results in a white goal. Green players appeal for the hand ball, and two get yellow cards right away. Was the ref just being defensive and showing a yellow to squelch dissent, or should he have been a little tolerant in this circumstance? I don't think the players said anything as rash as "Are you out of your ******* mind?" but I suspect they may have been upset... Other than "Thanks for the game," I didn't have a chance to ask about it after the match, but the one ref said he felt what the player said was disrespectful dissent.
The ref has to read the situation. Sometimes in a situation like this if you allow the dissent it'll just get worse, or sometimes they'll lose their frustration. Sometimes if you start throwing the cards around - or even talking to players - they'll just feel even more hard done by and get to that frustrated whinging stage, where nobody wins. But sometimes it may take a couple of cards to let them know that you'll have no hesitation in carding the team off the park if they keep throwing temper tantrums. The ref has to decide what the best way to deal with it is - ignore it? Have a word with one or two players? I once had an incident - accidental handling by an attacker led to the ball landing at his feet, and he scored. Defending team going nuts, I simply stated, very loudly 'the fact that he scored from it does not change the fact that it was accidental. If it's not deliberate then I can't give a free kick' and ran up the field to halfway to put the goal into my notebook. I think in that case briefly explaining (but not discussing) my reasoning helped. But the good thing about running up to halfway is that it makes it difficult for defenders to dissent you if you're not there to listen to it. It REALLY cuts down. If you hang around the PA, or just walk back, you're just asking to get into strife (though just make sure you don't leave your AR unprotected - keep an eye on things) Another time the defence were whinging about an alleged offside (I had no AR). After realising it wasn't going to die down I said, very loudly 'Right! That's it! Next person who says ANYTHING about that offside will get a card. NO MORE!!!'. That completely shut them up. 5 minutes later, at a corner, somebody made reference to that decision, and he got carded for dissent. Wasn't much of a comment, but if you make a threat you MUST back it up. Worked beautifully - everybody knew why he got carded and didn't complain. It really put an end to the dissent. I will note that doing something like that is extremely rare - it could very easily backfire. I just went on instinct, and my instincts were correct. Occasionally the best solution is one that goes against everything you're ever taught. Just an example of 2 different ways to handle such things. In most cases I'll allow a little bit of mass dissent, but if anybody keeps going on and on, or decides to target my AR, or really crosses the line then I'll say something or card them. But it's really about reading the situation, the mood of the game, and following your instincts. It's impossible to say if the referee was overzealous or if he handled it appropriately as we weren't there.
It really varies from ref to ref, I have a zero tolerance policy when protecting a youth AR, or even a new adult AR. However, was asked this while mentoring new/almost new refs this weekend, they asked where do you decide to pull the card. My answer was basically: - you need to develop your own threshhold - for "normal" dissent it should never be the first warning, you should try and warn them by things like "that's enough", "I've heard enough", give the hand singal/wave off and try to walk away. this warns them you've hit your limit, if the follow you then they are asking for it. - louder it is the quicker I hit this line - younger the kids are the quicker I hit this line (though younger ones stop much easier as well) - I will also factor in if I have had comments from this player earlier or is this the first time I've heard from them. - Language/attitude, are they honestly asking or being a jerk? Things NOT to do: - feel free to answer questions if you want, however it is NOT a debate, give the answer and move on, do not get roped into debating whether your decision was right or not. - do not loose your cool or raise your voice, keeping a soft voice often calms the others down
I use several "P"s as rules of thumb for when dissent crosses the line and becomes cautionable: 1. Personal. Once it goes from "That was a lousy call" to "You are a lousy ref". 2. Profane. If it's vulgar, but not quite red-cardable. In English or Spanish. 3. Public. Can the sidelines hear it? I'm especially sensitive if there are kids around. 4. Persistent. Enough, already.
I would add: 5. Patsy. Did the player attempt to blame me when it was obviously his own mistake that his team failed to score or failed to prevent the other team from scoring? An example of this is a defender gets lazy and holds an attacker onside, then when the well timed pass results in the attacker in alone on goal who scores... the defender goes looking to the AR to blame him for "letting them score". Of course in this case I don't show him a yellow card, but instead with as much sincerity as possible I tell him "WWWAAAAA !" Patsy. Also see ---->