Got the monthly email from USSF yesterday, and it included a link to a list of all grade 4 and 5 officials for 2016. To my surprise, when I looked though the list, there are just less than 100 grades 4 and 5 in the country. This, of course, does not include the officials that are part of PRO. Is it just me, or is that number a little lower than what you thought? And I also noticed quite a few officials that I know that did not retain their national badge. What's the reason for thinning out the pack?
This was discussed here previously. The consensus answer seemed to be because there is no need for any more than this, and perhaps to improve the standards. In the recent past, U-16 games and female O-30 games could be used for upgrade to National! When the National Referee program started, professional games were required for National badge assessments, plus a minimum of 5 years as a State 1 (05 grade). The standards were relaxed over the ensuing years. It was almost the "everyone gets a trophy/medal" symptom. There is very little chance of further advancement in any event. This fact alone may have discouraged a lot of people who had been led to believe that there were plenty of opportunities to get into pro refereeing and even to FIFA badges. This could also have been self-delusion though. PH
Pierre Head is right. Up until a few years ago, becoming a National was pretty much a 'check off the boxes' thing. Complete this list of requirements and you get the badge. You were one of the top referees in your state, maybe the only National in your state, depending on the state, and you had the eternal respect of your peers. Most people were Nationals for three or four years and then life and/or the challenges of meeting the grade maintenance requirements got in the way. As MLS professionalized its staff, turnover among their referees went down. Now it is a job, not just an avocation that sometimes overwhelms family and real world job. Others here have reported that MLS went from 38 guys who had a whistle in 2014 to 25 in 2015. That leaves a bunch of guys as perhaps career 4th official onlys, who also get some USL-Pro and Open Cup centers just to keep their hand in. But, below MLS and USL Pro, there are no professional leagues with the money to fly referees around the country to do their games. Centers for those games are regional, at best, and AR's are usually locals, YMMV, usually depending on geography. That leaves a glass ceiling in place for grade 4's. Effectively, they're now grade 3 candidates, but there is relatively low turnover among grade 3's. If only a small percentage of 4's will ever become 3's, then there is no real argument for having a lot of 4's. Last year, Mike Edwards (chair of the National Referee Committee) said that they really don't know what to do with grade 4's. This year, Mike said that the number of grade 4's will continue to shrink, albeit not as dramatically as it did between 2014 and 2016. If you are going to shrink the numbers faster than natural attrition will take place, some people have to lose the big badge involuntarily. I know one state that had four National Referees told that, for 2016, they would be State Referees. Seeing the carnage, quite a few young, ambitious grade 6's are still going through the stages of ignorance, denial or anger. The door to grade 3 is not locked but it is closed. Opening it for yourself now requires even greater skill and dedication than was necessary five years ago.
It's also becoming even harder than ever into getting into PRO. It used to be more merit based than before, but looking at the guys that recently got invited it is not the case. It is more about how much ass you kiss. Don't get me wrong, the guys that got invited do not look out of place on a professional game. There performances on Open Cup and other pro matches didn't justify their inclusion in my opinion.
I think it's fair to say that getting to the elite level of any career takes a combination of skill, luck, and networking. No reason this should be any different.
And preparation. I don't know who really said it first, but the saying is "the harder I work, the luckier I get." I know a National Candidate who was going to move to National this year. All he had to do was pass the physical at National Camp. However, he did not train. He did not practice the test. He did not even warm up. Tore a quad on the first sprint. Thanks for coming out. You have to control the variables you can control and your physical fitness is one of them. Yeah, some guys will try to control variables that they can't really "control" but maybe they can affect them, like whether people like you or not, but "politics" isn't going to help you if you can't do the physical, you can't manage people on the field, you don't go to very many high level tournaments away from your home state, etc. The above mentioned guy had the chance to move up, in a year that a lot of higher level guys lost their badge, because he had 25 passing assessments in 2015 from different National Assessors.
Just one more thing. Tom Reynolds was a FIFA Referee from Wales who came to the United States when the first NASL started. One of the things he used to say was "Some of these guys, they aren't bad referees. They're just bad human beings." I would argue that more people at the higher levels lose their opportunities to go higher because of what they do off the field than those who lose it because of what they do on the field.
It's not what you know but who you know as the saying goes. This is okay as long as it doesn't turn into cronyism (and I'm not saying it has here; I have no idea). As long as the referee still checks all the other boxes, it's not too harmful for networking to play in. It is difficult to keep it at that level.
Holy crap! 25 assessments After putting in that much work on the field, failing the fitness test is such a poor excuse. Will that guy ever get another shot?
It's my understanding that he could do a make up physical in March, two time zones away. His nickel to get there, of course. Of course, if he truly tore a quad, there's no way he will be healed in time. What some people don't realize is that assignors of the LAC level games are already planning who will do which games this year, even if they don't post the assignments right away. MLS is already playing pre-season games. If you fail the physical the first time, you might be able to make it up later but, by that time, the assignors already have plans for the people who did pass, so you get leftovers. Or, as Yogi said, "It gets late early."
Well, there are a couple exceptions (notwithstanding the obvious, which are the FIFAs and the Canadians). Alan Kelly couldn't go to National so in USSF's eyes I believe he's now a Grade 6. I think there are some other longstanding MLS ARs who, for one reason or other, are in the USSF database at a grade other than 3 (either simply a glitch or some of the retiring FIFAs who didn't revert down to Grade 3). But if you are a Grade 3, you are a PRO official, yes. So your overall point still stands.
Is that new this year? Because if not I'd say you're wrong. In the past there were referees that would unexpectedly be upgraded to 3 but they were definitely not on the PRO list even as a 4th yet. Marcos is one, and there were certainly some others in the past.
I don't know how we can prove this, but I think you're incorrect here. I'm almost positive that De Oliviera was a Grade 4 during the work stoppage in 2014, when he first got an MLS match. He then was upgraded to 3 when he started getting MLS matches after the work stoppage. Same thing happened with Weisbrod as an AR. To help support this, you'll note that the trial ARs last year were all Grade 4s (Blanchard, Greeson, Brown, etc.). The ones who got hired by PRO to be MLS ARs this year are all now Grade 3s. Same thing happened with Chilowicz, Mendez and Saghafi last year and Herrera and Vazquez this year as 4ths (though I think Saghafi and Vazquez went straight from 5 to 3, if I'm not mistaken). I can't think of a Grade 3 referee since at least 2013 who was not a member of PRO.
The small number of National Candidates -- 12 -- is shocking to me. How many national candidates the year before -- 40? 50? 100? Reducing the number of national candidates to 12 is a huge change in approach. I'm surprised this part of the thread isn't generating more discussion. There's really very little incentive now for a promising referee or assistant referee to try and move up through the ranks. What's next, creating a grade/status for State Referee Candidates? Maybe Chicago should just send a letter to all registered referees: 'don't try to move up on your own. We will send you an invitation when we want to upgrade you to the next higher grade.'
I'm sure Law 5 will bring back more details from this weekends referee workshop. There was a presentation on "The Path To National".
I remember when I started reffing, I worked with a National on occasion, in a league that was about 99% Grade 8s. I asked him why he was working there, and he said by the time he was a 5, he had no illusion of actually getting upper level games, since there were so many people ahead of him, but that he just thought he might as well keep going to get his National badge before dropping back down. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they're trying to get rid of...people going for the Nat badge just for the sake of getting one, and making sure that every one that is on track for one has a decent chance of all their hard work actually being rewarded with high level games.
Yes, dropping to 12 national candidates a year will certainly 'get rid of' the mentality of people deciding to 'go national' simply because it is the next higher grade. However, having only a dozen national candidates a year will have much more far-reaching effects than what you summarized.
Just my two cents. I think this program will be a success if less nationals means that those who do get a grade 4/5 get more specialized training that would help produce more top tier referees for the professional game. My assumption is that ussf wants quality over quantity.