Welcome to the MLS Referee Forum. Before you get started, here's an overview of the rules and guidelines related to this forum. Purpose The purpose of this sub-forum is to discuss matters related to officials and officiating in Major League Soccer. This is a sub-forum of the referee forum, but we welcome non-referees to read and share opinions regarding officiating. Moderation This board will be heavily moderated, as it is a news & analysis forum. It is inevitable in any sporting competition that controversies regarding officiating will arise. Discussion of controversy is one of the primary reasons this forum exists. However, all discussion must remain respectful and grounded. Posters who continually promote positions contrary to the Laws of the Game will not be tolerated in this forum. Furthermore, conspiracy theories or allegations against officials without evidence will be dealt with harshly and without warning. If your purpose for visiting this forum is simply to complain about referees without analysis or willingness to discuss incidents fairly, please take your thoughts elsewhere. There are other forums on BigSoccer that better suit such discussion. Match Threads Many of the threads in this forum will be match threads. All discussion regarding incidents related to a particular match, including pre-game and post-game incidents, must take place in the thread specific to that match. If a thread does not exist for the match you wish to discuss, please feel free to create a new thread. When creating that thread, please use the following format for the title: "MM/DD - Home Team : Away Team - REFEREE" (e.g., 12/07 - LA Galaxy : New England Revolution - GEIGER) Note that an [R] isn't required, as it is presumed that all match threads in this forum could/will reveal a result. If you're creating a thread in advance of a match, please take the time to list the crew in the first post of the thread. Assignments can be found at PROReferees.com. Assignments and General Discussion Thread All discussion not related to a particular match should take place in the Assignments and General Discussion thread for the season. Please do not post any information regarding incidents related to a particular match in this thread. Some posters like to read the Assignments and General Discussion thread without having watched a match that day and would like to avoid spoilers regarding that match. By limiting discussion of incidents related to particular matches, posters can avoid those spoilers simply by avoiding that thread. Please respect this guideline. Referee Lingo We hope this forum will contain a mix of posts from both referees and non-referees. As a result, there will likely be some referee lingo used that may not be familiar to non-referee posters. Below are a few common terms. For a more complete list, please see the Referee Acronyms thread on the Referee Forum. LOTG = The Laws of the Game DOGSO = Denial of an Obvious Goal-Scoring Opportunity; this is the official standard for a "last man" red card. SFP = Serious Foul Play; this is the standard for an on-the-ball challenge that results in a red card, such as tackle that endangers the safety of an opponent. VC = Violent Conduct; this is the standard for an off-the-ball challenge that results in a red card, such as an elbow. UB = Unsporting Behavior; this is the classification for the vast majority of yellow cards and covers a wide array of offences. PI = Persistent Infringement; this is a classification for a yellow card. CR = Center Referee AR = Assistant Referee 4O = Fourth official CMI = Critical match incident
For the 2016 season, we will try weekly discussion threads. All discussion for all assignments and matches in a single week will go in that week's thread. It is still presumed that results might be given away in the weekly threads, so no need for the [R] tag.