Spitting

Same here. Referee on near bench side grabs his and far referee's gear and make a bee line to parking lot. No post-game discussions with anyone.

 

Someone here had a great (in my opinion) analogy that you were akin to a pilot who just navigated a flight through a bunch of turbulence, land the plane, you did your job, and then two passengers start fighting in the aisle while getting off. You did the hard work navigating the game, what happens afterwards isn’t your problem.

I also asked Joe Dickerson about this situation since I had a similar issue, and he basically said to not hang around looking for things to penalize in the handshake line.

 

In that case, why stop with the handshake line? Should I follow the players out to the parking lot as well? Maybe check in on the school playground the next day?

Coaches and parents can handle what happens after the game. I'm not sprinting off the field, but I am leaving once my job is done.

Again, if your association instructs you to monitor this, that's a different story. Otherwise, I'm going to go by the LOTG, which give me no obligation to monitor post-game activities. And a lot of the best referees I know agree with me.

 

It’s funny because I remember an exact situation happening in spring where we had to do a 17b NPL with only two of us and it got a little heated, I told my partner we are leaving the field immediately. Then as we were at our bags a brouhaha broke out, ended up giving an assistant coach a RC. The head coach told us that one of the opponents had spit towards a player and that’s what set everything off. He tried to blame us, saying how you give my assistant a red card but nothing for the player who spit. I told him the handshake line isn’t our problem, sorry.

 

Not only that but hanging around especially after a heated match just gives more opportunities for your presence to bait someone into getting a post match red card

 

If I quickly make my way towards my bag on the touchline and start packing up, that’s just as much of an opportunity for a coach to come over and start complaining about things. And if the coach (or anyone else) comes up to me to commit misconduct, well now since I’ve left the field I can’t issue sanctions. I can write a game report, sure, but that’s not always going to stick as easily as cards will.

We definitely shouldn’t do anything that causes problems that don’t need to exist, but IMO we should also remain alert in the moments immediately after the final whistle and be prepared to deal with misconduct that occurs in that time (unless the governing body tells us not to).

 

Wait what is this? You’re saying that if you physically leave the field of play itself but are in the complex or even the sideline at your bag you can’t issue misconduct? I have never heard this in my life. I have been told that we have jurisdiction in the entire area for a reasonable amount of time before and after the match (meaning maybe a few minutes)

Also if you’re walking off the field and have already issued a coach a dissent YC and expect him to try to do more, just do what I do and as soon as the match ends take out your red card and walk away with it in your hand. And you can verbalize to him about what’s in your hand if he starts to approach. Or don’t, it’s probably a stupid practice. But doing that I have never had a coach so post match confrontation and it just helped me in water polo yesterday too

 

Same here, but from the State level.

We've also been instructed the past two years to tell captains/coaches during pregame we cannot participate in post game handshakes/fistbumps. We're to grab our gear and exit immediately.

But we can still get swamped by players & coaches that come to us at our bags for traditional end-of-game pleasantries. If all went well and there's no perceived risks, a number still partake to maintain goodwill.

 

In my reading of Laws 5 and 12, I have always assumed vicinity of the field of play was implicit. Rule 5 of the high school handbook adds the phrase "and its immediate surroundings."

 

Same here as well, but unfortunately, it didn't stop my crew from being verbally harrassed earlier this week from an asshole parent in the stands right behind where our bags were.

It didn't help that our center engaged with the parent, but this guy was like a 10 year old boy with his insults as well (calling my other AR 'grandpa' and telling him to go home and change his diaper). Fun times this week.

 

There are some supervision differences here. In USSF, referees are the only representatives of the league, state association and USSF present at the game. If players and/or coaches (!) get into a post game dust up, the league and/or state is going to be asking what we saw. "We heard shouting behind us but we didn't turn around because we didn't want to deal with it" is not going to get you a medal. This is a variant of the old excuse "I didn't give a card because I didn't want to do the paperwork.' The referees I've heard say that kind of stuff aren't around very long.

In high school, the host school is responsible for managing behavior by players, coaches and spectators after the game. We can still give cards to the players and/or coaches, but the school wants first crack at it. Our state tries to require that schools escort the officials to their cars. But one of my largest frustrations is high school partners who take their sweet time getting ready to leave. They change their shoes, take off their shirt, repack their bag, get a drink of water and by now the kids in the stands are waiting to give us our performance review. Jog off, pick up your bag and go!

 

Our HS board has also strongly recommended that we leave immediately after the game ends. Not to avoid policing any misbehavior, but to lessen the chance of a disgruntled coach or player from expressing their discontent at us. Apparently our long time assignor had more than his share of these incidents in his reffing days, so that likely colors his recommendation.

If I suspect that there will be shenanigans between the teams, I will definitely keep an eye out, but hey, it's dinner time, or I got another game to get to, so see y'all later....

 

Hopefully you contacted your assignor with the facts so the assignor dealt with the club in question. If you were able to get a picture or video to clearly identify the guy so he can be banned, all the better.

 

This is a bad-faith straw man. Nobody here (or anywhere) is suggesting that you should ignore a fight that breaks our while you're still at the field. Even in cases where referees are advised to leave the field promptly after the game, there is always the expectation that the referee is still responsible in the moments following the final whistle.

There is a mile of difference between what you're saying, and a referee choosing not to stand guard at the post-game handshake line like he's a prison guard watching the chow line.

Blow the final whistle. Stay for as long as it takes for the teams to make their way off the field peacefully. Give your ARs time to meet you at the center circle. Walk off the field together at a normal pace.

 

Depending on the schools, I can’t just walk to my car. We receive rosters from each coach that sometimes need to be returned with misconducts noted. A RC for throwing a punch could easily result in a suspension of the player from school. And some schools can’t be trusted to self report cards to their district and are required to send in the match report. So you are stuck out there filling out the paperwork and returning each set to each coach before you can grab and go.