Then you have assignors who alienate and berate referees ... ahem... and tell them you aren't fit to referee (center) games at any level... then get invited to State Cup along with assignor and said assignor says not a single word to referee and will wonder why said referee doesn't want to cover his games anymore in the coming Fall........... geez. I can't quite put my finger on it
Unfortunately, this is what it will take. The general attitude of many coaches and parents is, "We can continue to hammer referees, because they always come back." Until their kids' games aren't being played (and their money isn't being maximized), they will continue their behavior. I've told parents on my son's team about our referee shortage and that it's fortunate that we don't have more cancellations because of these shortages. The sad thing is that assignors are so desperate to assign the games to keep assignors happy that they will do things like assign a referee for 17 games on a weekend. Assignors have to stand firm and tell clubs they are not going to over-assign referees. If that means games and tournaments are cancelled or shortened, so be it.
Then you have assignors who call you last minute to cover games, and those games haven't been put in GameOfficials/DragonFly. As of this typing, I have two U10 friendlies and a middle school girl's game still not in the system and I still haven't gotten paid for them. The girls game was the first of a doubleheader. I was assigned the second, boys game. I will not do any more games for this assignor unless the games are in the system BEFORE I take the field.
We get cash on field for league games, there is no paying through the system for youth soccer here, so if I show up to a game, I get paid for it. The flipside is if I show up to a game in gameofficials and there is no game... because the clubs didn't bother to tell the assignor that they cancelled/rescheduled it. This happened to me this past weekend, picked up an open game (the one out of the 30 open) and turns out, there was no game. Frustrating, because I wasted my time and fuel for nothing and I will not get paid for that. Some leagues and in HS they more often than not will pay, others will not.
Some leagues around here have resorted to having the assignor also be the game scheduler, so there's no lack of communication about cancelled/rescheduled/relocated/time changed games. For high school and college, the home school is responsible for entering the game into the on-line schedule. If they don't enter changes, that's on them and they have to pay anyway.
This is a topic that is near and dear to me. As of now, I don't think I have a referee shortage, here in eastern CT. That is, there are more than enough refs to cover the games. My problem is getting the right refs for the right games. Or in the towns were the games are played. My biggest problem is that clubs will not intelligently schedule their games. One of the clubs I assign for has a ton of fields, spread out all over town. So it is common to have 6 games on Sunday at 10, then 2 games at 12, 1 game at 2, and 5 games at 4. So I get 18 refs working at 10 and send 12 of them home. Then try to get them back at 4. Not happening. I have this scenario 3 different weekends and I beg them to switch some games to the middle hours. I have had exactly 1 team agree to switch, and they switched from 10 to 4, so not really helping. So far, I have been able to fill about 98% of my spots (we use 3 refs on ALL games). But I am putting in 2-3-4 hours a day working on it, all week long. Actually looking forward to end of season (never felt that way before). And having this weekend with no games is a welcome break.
I signed up for a Memorial Day tournament in RI. I very specifically put in the "notes" that I was only available on Sat and Sun and only 5 games per day (70 min games). And that is what I got assigned. And even this is pushing it for my newly turned 60 yr old legs. Then, a few days ago, a 6th game got added at the end of Sunday. When I will be absolutely drained. I wrote to assignor and told him I can't do it and he responded with this - "There is no way we can bring in a referee just for one game. Please accept and do you best to get through. Let the assignor on site know that if anyone is available that day, to switch you out." I really don't know how to respond to this. If it was my tournament and I was assignor, I would have (paid) rovers available for this sort of thing. But these guys assign 4 guys to each game and one is on (unpaid) standby. Yeah right - if I had to work a standby, that would turn my 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, into 6 in a row. Nope. Luckily, my 22 yr old reffing buddy who is working the games with me and is happy to take a 7th game (for him) and spare me the 6th.
No is still an option, and forcing the tournament to not have a referee on that game. It's just not worth it, something has to change and the more this happens the more people will demand a change.
The amazing thing about these marathons is that at my age I can handle the physicality of the event, I just can’t handle the mental aspect (which drops is you lose strength).
I feel 100% the same way about this. I can run and finish out the day on adrenaline, but mentally I am drained and I am done. By the time the sixth game rolls around, I am pointing in the wrong direction and missing simple things that should not be missed. And when I get home and go to bed, once I close my eyes all I see is the soccer field with all the action and all I hear is the noises - the crowd, ball being kicked etc. It is not very healthy.
You know you've done too many games when you can't remember if it's half time or the end of the game.
My hit rate hasn't been quite 98% but I echo your statement on time, relief as the end nears, the novelty of that relief, and the blessing of a weekend where my biggest soccer issue is hooking up my computer to my TV to watch the Champions League final. (rassa-frassin-Paramount+)
In my current hometown, we are doing a U10-U11 junior/academy event this weekend. From a refereeing perspective, we are using this event almost exclusively to work new and young referees into the mix. The veterans like me will serve as coaches and mentors for these referees. Part of the information sent to the teams is to make it explicit that we are developing less experienced referees and for coaches and parents to lay off of the referees. My son and several of his teammates will be refereeing, and I'll mentor his teammates while (by design) one of the other referees mentors my son.
We've had a ton of cancellations this year. The H.S. side has been rough, our state didn't have a fall season, so boys season ended (no playoffs) and the girls started the same week. Nonstop, all week long. Good money, tough on the legs. We had a club tourney a little while ago where they were paying club ARs $18 a game. Several parent sjust worked all day long. "I'm here, anyway". It's been tough to stay 100% engaged when you're so burnt out, but, again, we deal with the "If I say no, will I get pushback?" Issue. 17 games in a weekend in my record, it was my second year of reffing (not that long ago). It absolutely murdered me. I think most were U12, but had about 4 11v11 in there, maybe 5. My body was thrashed, but my brain was absolute mush, especially after a Sunday of 1-man matches.
This is where I think we do a disservice to the game when we put refs in this position. I suspect most of us have been there and it's never pretty. I will admit that as an assignor I never told the clubs no when faced with this problem so I was part of the problem.
This gives me a flashback to being teenager and doing a tournament for the PAL league I reffed for--in which all teams had the same red-blue reversible jerseys, same shorts, and same socks. By the end it was virtually impossible to remember which team was going which way or whether it was the first or second half.
Here are my stories about similar uniforms. Both come from the first couple of years that I did NFHS soccer where one team is supposed to be white and the other team is supposed to wear "dark" jerseys. These were both what we call modified games in New York, which means basically junior high. The games are "modified" because they don't follow all NFHS rules. We are also told that some schools may not have a full set of white/dark uniforms at the modified level. 1. It was a boys modified game with blue playing purple. Since it was modified, my partner and I both figured that the teams only had one set of jerseys and blue and purple are slightly different. However, during the play, it was really hard to tell who the ball went off of and if a player was offside or not. About halfway through the first half, one of the coaches asked, "Do you want us to put on our white jerseys?" Apparently, they had reversible jerseys and hadn't thought to change. 2. The other game was between two teams. One did have white jerseys and the other team had orange. However, both teams were wearing orange socks. At one point, I saw what I thought was an intentional "backpass" to the goalkeeper who picked up the ball with his hands so I blew the whistle to award an indirect free kick to one team. One coach started to complain, which I normally would ignore, but my partner came over and told me that one team had just taken a really weak shot on goal. Since it was NFHS rules at the time, I gave the goalkeeper's team an indirect free kick for an inadvertent whistle.
Fortunately I was at the meeting when my AYSO Region's Board discussed having all teams have black socks to save costs and make replacements easier . . . .
I may have posted this years ago. Home team (U14 rec league) has blue uniforms. Away has both blue and white - but the coach told his players to wear the blue. I knew because one kid showed up in white and I heard the coach say it. The league rule was that in case of conflict, home should change. The away coach was pulling for a forfeit win. Sheesh! Home coach says, wait, he has souvenir t-shirts in the back of his car that he was going to hand out at the end of the game. Could they wear those instead? Certainly. But they don't have numbers. No problem, league rules don't require numbers, just color. Problem solved, game played. I just had to ask for names of any goal scorers to put in the game report.