This past weekend, I was the referee of a very lopsided game at the Gainesville Regional Soccer League. A player on the loosing team decided to voice his disapproval of the way I was dealing with certain fouls by saying that he knew better and could guarantee he’d been refereeing longer than I had (in slightly more heated terminology not fit for the blog).
Rather than immediately cautioning the player by issuing him a yellow card, as is the leagues mandated protocol, I reminded him very loudly that I didn’t care if he’d been refereeing longer than I had because I was the referee of this particular match and that he’d better respect that. I could see heads turn to watch the spectacle on other fields and members of this player’s own team scolded him for talking back to the ref.
At the conclusion of the match, a player from the winning team inquired as to why I didn’t follow the league rules on cautioning for dissent by giving that player a yellow card.
Which brings me to this: Why is the league now mandating cautions? I’ve been doing this for eight years and I know when to come down hard on players to limit dissent and when to give somebody a break.
The problem is that as referees wish to advance their careers, they need to travel to cities with more prominent leagues – leaving Gainesville
The league decided dissent is a problem because referees aren’t sanctioning players for it when necessary and issued an ultimatum: immediately issue yellow cards for any form of dissent.
Generally, this might be appropriate. But there are times when it’s not, such as the game I had Sunday. By making blanket statements based on the performance of inexperienced referees, the league is discounting the experience of senior officials.
No comments:
Post a Comment