Youth Soccer Referee
"Referees - The Whole Elephant?"

The email asserts that poor officiating rewards reckless, dishonest play, and penalizes good sports with good skill. True. But you are in error in attributing this primarily to the referees. The person primarily responsible for reckless, dishonest play obviously is the player that engages in it. People are responsible for their own actions first and foremost. Next are those who teach and encourage such conduct by being overzealous and by having lost perspective of what the game is about and who it is for. These include some people, fortunately very few, who incite problems and incidents by "barking at the ref" and other similar actions that provoke others, especially children who follow the examples of their authority figures, to improper actions out on the field. Last of all is the referee who at most can sometimes be legitimately criticized for not stopping others from engaging in misconduct.

There can be fair criticism of, for example, the police for not stopping a crime from happening or from not catching the wrongdoer after the fact, but that can never alter or change that it is the criminal -- the actual wrongdoer -- who remains primarily responsible for the crime and their own conduct. The real problem is those who teach and encourage misconduct, often those seeking to "win at all costs."

The email states that a youth player was taken down from behind in the penalty area on a breakaway four times in two games. Let's begin with the basics -- the rules. CYSA's rule is that: "The referee's judgment with regard to the physical condition of the field and its acceptance for play, to the actual happenings and occurrences related to the conduct of the game and those prerogatives granted to him/her by the 'Laws of the Game' for outdoor soccer and the 'Official Indoor Soccer Rules' for indoor soccer, shall not be challenged." CYSA's rule comes from Law 5 of the Laws of the Game. It provides: "The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play are final." In other words, it is for the referee alone to make the factual decision of whether there was or was not a foul committed and no one else. So we start from the established principle that it is not for the players, the coaches, the spectators, or anyone else other than the referee to decide if a foul has been committed. Thus, under the laws of the game, as you say that the referees at issue did not call fouls we are required to assume that the referee's decisions were correct and your characterization is in error.

Moving beyond the laws of the game and rules that govern it, I would pose the following queries: How do you know a player was taken down from behind? Do you know what the requirements for that foul actually are? Do you have any training and meaningful experience with officiating? Were you the assessor assigned to these games? Were you better suited and situated to see the action than the referee? Just the physics and mechanics of the game of soccer, the differing positions of people in relation to the field and play, and the dynamics of what is happening in a game would strongly suggest that the answers are in the negative.

The email then says that the worst part is that: "It happens all over. Tournament after tournament." With all due respect, that assertion is simply not true. During the regular playing season in CYSA, approximately 7,000 regular league games are played every Saturday or Sunday, and on tournament weekends many hundreds if not thousands more. When one considers the magnitude of the play going on at every level throughout Northern California, there are very, very few instances of any kind including allegations such as those in your email. Your allegation may be strongly emotionally felt, but it is nevertheless erroneous. The facts do not support your allegation.

You next make the statement that: "And you wonder why there is a mass exodus of talented players at age fourteen." First, let me point out that the "exodus" is in all youth sports and it statistically is at ages 12 and 13, not age 14. The existence of the "exodus" has been studied a significant number of times and the principle conclusions reached as to its cause is almost always the same: (1) playing is no longer fun for the kids and (2) it is not fun because of team officials and parents who have become too demanding of the kids and have lost sight of what the game for all kids is really about and who it is really for.

In my view, a very good source to consider the source of the "exodus" is the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance's National Report Card on Youth Sports. You can find it at _http://www.sportsmanship.org_ (http://www.sportsmanship.org) . I strongly commend it to your consideration. This and a number of other sources do not substantiate your assertion and related innuendo.

Leaving aside the rather strident hyperbole in your next paragraph, you appear to be trying to say that we, meaning soccer administrators, should not criticize parents for their misconduct towards game officials and others and be more responsible by training and supervising decent referees. You assert, presumably as a parent, that the message has been received by parents. I beg to differ. I submit that the tone, tenor, and content of your email by itself establishes that the message has not been received by at least some.

As for training and supervising referees, that is an on-going effort of substantial magnitude that never lets up. So too is the efforts to train and supervise coaches, trainers, match secretaries, registrars, disciplinary officials, and the thousands and thousands of others who make tremendous contributions to youth soccer.

These tremendous efforts are there and they are real, even if some may be completely unaware and uninformed of them. Does that mean that everything is perfect and that there are no problems? Of course not. No reasonable or responsible person would expect that or claim that from any human endeavor. But the fact that we deal with real people in real circumstances with all of their shortcomings as well as all of their much greater contributions in my view provides no basis for denigrating their efforts and the good they do.

By the way, you are also mistaken in asserting that it is harder to train and supervise referees, coaches, etc. than lecture parents. Coaches, referees, and all the others that make huge contributions are motivated to improve and affirmatively try to do so by attending courses and by taking advantage of other educational opportunities. Parents who are not engaged in such activities are not similarly situated can be very hard to reach not to mention that sometimes some of them for whatever reason are just not capable of listening. Fortunately for us all this is a very, very small group, but unfortunately enough to cause harm disproportionate to their numbers.

Finally, you say that you would be shocked if the youth soccer powers that be point out "this elephant in their living room." For the reasons described above I submit that the accusations made indicate a lack of understanding and appreciation not only of the roles and contributions of referees as well as others but also of the myriad of issues and concerns that are involved in youth soccer and their relative weight. The parable of the six men each touching part of an elephant and believing that the part they are touching is the whole elephant comes readily to mind.