I know we like to bitch about (MLS) referees on this site, but I wanted to let folks know that there is an impending crisis in Cal North. So far only 4,566 referees are registered for 2020. Last year we had around 15,000 certified referees. I know from experience that a majority of referees doing youth games right now are either grizzled veterans like me or kids and parents just out of class with a fresh license. And, while I don't have the hard facts to back this up, I would put money on the average ref getting licensed for the first time will only last one or two seasons before quitting in disgust. I assume most of you have been seeing stories about how referees are quitting/not renewing in various sports around the country, but I thought you would be interested to know that it's happening right here. There are obviously more than one reason for this - in fact, I would estimate about 10,000 reasons this year - but I think a lot of them would revolve around the fact that refereeing has begun to be anything but enjoyable. Even I - after 27 years of being a referee - am hearing things I've never heard before. Parents, coaches, players - the utter lack of respect, lack of understanding, lack of knowledge (usually exhibited at loud volumes), and disrespect for referees has become intolerable, and it's begun showing in the numbers. Now, I have been lucky, as I have never been physically threatened or intimidated, but I believe from my discussions with other referees that I am in the minority, having heard countless stories of referees having been shoved, threatened, asked to fight, etc. Just want to lay this out there, because I don't know if folks in our area have been aware of this as a problem, but I can promise you that you will be seeing more and more youth games cancelled because of the inability to obtain referees, and even raising the game fees from their previous laughable level is not going to stop the flight of referees from the game. Personally, I have had to reflect very seriously before renewing my registration for the past three years, and apparently many of my colleagues have weighed the same factors and made the opposite decision.
First of all, thank you for your time and commitment to youth soccer. You are part of the reason soccer has grown in this country at all levels and are key to providing an enjoyable experience. I took a different route than you with youth soccer. I started coaching my sons twenty one years ago. Over the years, I have been a coach in AYSO and CYSA, board member, and coach instructor. Additionally, I have run a AYSO VIP Program for special needs for a couple years and was a coach in the program. I think the issue is the competitive nature of the sport has increased, adults who have children played as a youth, and a culture which is no longer civil (speak your mind no mater what). 10,000 seems to be a large number. So, my analysis seems too simplistic. I stopped coaching a couple years ago, even for VIP. It was never about me, but coaching my kids. However, I seen too many coaches who are in the sport for personal reasons, not for the kids. Welcome to money in youth sports!
As much as I complain about professional referees, which is my birthright as a fan, there is no excuse for parents or players or coaches berating officials in youth or recreational leagues. I never once talked back to an official in my years of playing sports. I could not conceive of doing so. Maybe the dearth of formal officials will force kids to begin informally officiating their own games, as with pick-up games from my youth. Who knows, maybe some leagues will dissolve and pick-up play will have a renaissance. That would further sportsmanship, in my estimation. .
Yeah - I think that the increased pressure exerted by the monetary commitment required to keep a kid in (competitive) soccer is a definite factor. I remember 20 years ago when my (36 yo) son was still playing we first started to see 'professional' coaches and trainers (guys like David Gold and Tim Martin) in some of the more pricey leagues (Almaden, at that time). Now, it's pervasive, and people are paying thousands of dollars to have their kids play, which increases the pressures, increases the tension, and makes parents and coaches act like every U10 game is the World Cup. It's in every sport. Besides the money aspect, I think that perhaps its another symptom of the breakdown of politeness in society writ large.
With the investment into more and more professional teams and academies, why can’t Pro get MLS to invest in some kind of “Referee Training Program” that would help young men and women to a path of becoming professional referees? Maybe some kind of system that promotes the best ones to be able to earn at least partial college scholarships? Working games while in college AND getting scholarship money would be a powerful incentive to many students (and their parents), especially the ones that had spent thousands over the years in club ball. Most players don’t have enough talent to become professionals, but they could still benefit from their “soccer education”.
I remember two games from my playing days that went real bad. One when I was probably about 14 or 15, where parents from the opposing team came onto the field and pushed and threatened players on our team and the referee because they felt the ref was not calling fouls on our team that he should have. The referee quickly abandoned the game before fists started flying between players and parents. The second was when I played in a mens league and our opponent was a team sponsored by an Irish pub and nearly every player on the team was an Irish ex-pat whose skill at soccer did not match the thickness of their brogue. As we started knocking goals in and our lead grew their play became more brutal and violent. After the ref issued the second red card against them taunts and threats to our safety started coming in from the sideline toward both the ref and players on our team. At this point the ref called the game and I remember we hightailed it to our cars before anything happened. This was long before the advent of cell phones so there was no calling the cops to come intervene. We subsequently learned that our game was the final straw in escalating poor behavior by this team and the league kicked them out with a permanent ban.
It's a really crappy gig, and I'm surprised there have been as many available refs for youth leagues as there has been. When I was a teenager I reffed a couple seasons for AYSO, kids usually under 10. Even there I had parents and coaches yelling things to me that I was shocked to hear, as if I had any vested interest in the outcome of the game at all. I get plenty worked up about bad officiating, and I did my fair share of mouthing off to refs as a jerk player in high school, but the abuse hurled at refs is obviously unwarranted. It's one thing to vent about bad calls and stuff on a forum or whatever, but to directly aim that ire in person is something else. Anyway, hats off to you for your commitment to officiating.
It isn't really MLS' job to do this, it is USSF, and (IMO) they are failing miserably at it. Between the whiplash-like changes in the referee programs every couple of years (each new head likes to put his/her stamp on it) and the lack of support provided down to the state level (and from there, to the local level), I am sometimes amazed that the entire structure hasn't collapsed under its own weight. The image below is an accurate representation of the USSF referee program, with the local youth leagues at the bottom and PRO at the top:
As much of a jerk as I am, I've only yelled at a ref as a player once. I got a yellow card for it, as I should have. I did on a couple of occasions have to explain that I don't hear well, and thus did not hear what the ref called. Yeah, huge kudos to everyone who refs, even those who aren't very good at it. Go Quakes!! - Mark
I coached and reffed from 18 until I was about 32. I started reffing because San Ramon required that all teams had to have at least 1 ref and no one wanted to do it. I hated reffing Worst job ever as an adult (I would do it in a heartbeat as a kid... no better money that I can think of). At Hayward State I spent two years going through a coaching program which included a requirement of 100 hours reffing.. that was a lot of games and I ended up on the field around 10 hours every weekend on top of whatever I needed for the team I coached (between one and four games a weekend). God I reffing. People are a**holes.
My hubby and I recently got a chance to talk to the USSoccer Director of Referee Operations. He said that they lose 1/3 of referees every year, and now 60% of their referees are teenagers. We stressed that the current move to online training for referees is making it more difficult for new refs to get the shared community and mentoring they need to become successful and thus stick with the program. The guy seemed to have already heard everything we told him and was aware of all the issues. But he is a young guy (maybe early 30s) who came from the coaching side. He believes that the new online platform they use for training coaches will work for referees. I didn’t ask him how much referee experience he has, but I just didn’t feel he really was taking referees’ input to heart. So I think the chances of getting more Mark Geigers out of today’s youth referee corps may be quite small. I wouldn’t be surprised if PRO ends up importing more referees, because USSoccer is not putting in the effort to develop them in the USA.
FYI - Last night, at my last HS game of the season, I just spoke to my fellow refs, who are assignors, and the situation hasn't really changed. There are only about 6K referees licensed for 2020 in NorCal right now, and that means that a lot of games are going to be cancelled in the upcoming season because refs can't be found. Beyond the usual issues of disrespect and abuse, there are other things going on as well: the USSF has essentially decided it has no interest in fostering the game at the lower levels. They have lumped the former referee grades 7-9 into a "grassroots" designation, and essentially left it up to the states to deal with license renewals, etc. Unfortunately, CNRA seems to have, for lack of a better way to put it, screwed the pooch with respect to this issue, and there was a lot of confusion this fall. Also, to put it bluntly, there is a huge cadre of referees who are my contemporaries, and most of us are at the age where we are looking to minimize our game-count, and are no longer interested in reffing eight or ten games a weekend. Add to that the ascendancy of US Club soccer over CYSA (US Club has piggybacked on the resources developed over the years by CYSA and has done essentially nothing to help provide the infrastructure for training referees, developing playing fields and parks, etc.) and it's a perfect storm. I really fear that unless some rather drastic action is taken, there will be a lot of angry parents deciding that they don't want their kids playing...