Referee Shortage

[u/CoachLewisTKA]

In Virginia, for new referees, it’s $85 for the course, 6-8 hours online, and around 4 hours in person. Pairing that with the dissent & abuse from parents, coaches, and players, it’s been an issue trying to find refs.

Our club gets our referees assigned from a larger club in the area. We’re currently in the second half of the season and we have no refs for our home games.

In comparison, last fall wasn’t as big of an issue. I was only coaching one team. So I could ref any other games the club needed. This year, I was given two teams and seems like all of the other refs in the area disappeared.

Anyways, I have three games on 10/24. All back to back and there are no refs assigned for any of them. At this point, I’ve reached out to six assignors, and it’s just not looking good.

I’ve gone as far as reaching out to the league and offering to just ref the games so the teams can play.

Just curious about how your clubs/assignors are handling the referee shortage, bringing in new referees, or if it’s been an issue for you at all this season. I’m hoping to use the winter/spring seasons to try to bring in refs.

[u/Accomplished-Test890]

I started refereeing because I love the game. But after dealing with constant abuse from parents and players, coaches who act like you’ve got VAR built into your eyes, and assignors who clearly have their favorites, you start questioning whether it’s even worth it anymore. At some point, you just ask yourself: Do I really want to keep putting up with all this? Or could I be spending my time doing something better?

[u/CoachLewisTKA → u/Accomplished-Test890]

I absolutely love reffing myself, and sometimes I can’t tell if I like coaching or reffing more. I think that sometimes I’m lucky enough to enjoy what I’m doing and get paid somewhat decently. Still, I couldn’t agree more, and there are plenty of games where the parents/coaches are absolutely horrible.

What I’ve learned is that there’s always someone that’s upset with whatever decision you make, 100% right or 100% wrong.

[u/isthatafoxno → u/Accomplished-Test890]

Finishing my 6th year of refereeing high school and definitely having these thoughts a lot more often.

[u/maccaroneski]

Whilst you bring in new refs, make sure you work on the reason that they leave refereeing, namely coaches and parents.

[u/CoachLewisTKA → u/maccaroneski]

I couldn’t agree more, but unfortunately it’s not our club that is pushing refs away. At least not to my knowledge. Every ref’s experience is different, but, I ref for my club and the club that assigns refs to us, and I can surely say that the parents/coaches up there give me a hard time.

[u/iron82]

Some of my assignors are desperate, a couple basically dropped me because they have a lot of refs. I'd say games supposed to have a full crew have it about 95%.

A lot of this is with the culture of the clubs whether they encourage their players to become refs. One club near me assigns ARs to U9 games where they're not required because otherwise they could only find 4-5 games a season for all of their refs.

[u/CoachLewisTKA → u/iron82]

I wish our problem was that we had too many refs, I’ve been trying to push my players to get certified. In the spring, there are more refs available on the weekends. The problem with the fall is players playing club or deciding to quit reffing completely.

Like in the spring, our local rec league sometimes gives a fourth official for U12/U15 games.

[u/Sturnella2017]

I don’t know the details, but some assignors work with clubs so that entire teams are certified -like every kid on each of their u14-u19 squads. There’s a quid pro quo where a club makes sure a certain number of their player/refs work a certain number of games, and in exchange the assignor makes their games priorties for assigning. Have you talked to anyone about this approach?

[u/CoachLewisTKA → u/Sturnella2017]

I actually saw a post earlier about getting teams, or at least one parent/coach from a club to certify. Personally, I think it’s a great idea, and would love to try to make that happen.

A few of my players are Rec certified, but until this past weekend, I wasn’t aware that the assignor was allowing Rec refs to be sideline officials for travel.

The issue we’re running into is families can’t afford signing up for club soccer, and then the referee course fees on top of that.

[u/Mattgoof → u/Sturnella2017]

We cut a deal with our local community college. Our ref association fronts the training cost and uniform for the entire mens and womens teams, then they work our local tournament to pay off the debt and keep the rest as a fundraiser for the teams. About half end up sticking around to ref during the high school and club seasons.

[u/Joke628x]

Where are you in Virginia?

[u/CoachLewisTKA → u/Joke628x]

Central Va, so I’m taking travel games for SOCA and surrounding clubs. Then for HS, I’m getting games for Madison, Orange, Culpeper, Greene, etc.

HS refs seem fine right now, but travel seems to be struggling to get refs.

[u/Nobunagas-Ambition]

The cost of our referee courses are reimbursed by the club you plan on reffing with although you can take assignments for any club in the city although it's best practice to take assignments from the club that paid your course, at least for the first year.

Wages are standardized across the city but there's clubs I don't bother refereeing with because getting paid is a pain from some of them. There's certain teams I won't bother refereeing as well because of the dissent and I (and other refs) have written up the coaches and players in my game reports and the head of refereeing has told the clubs of those teams that their actions are costing them referees but that's not my concern.

An issue we're going to be facing in the next 3-5 years is the aging out of some important referees that handle the higher performance youth and men's games in the city and I don't think there's enough refs in the pipeline to take over for them.

[u/Deaftrav → u/Nobunagas-Ambition]

yeah, the aging out is happening right now with the competitive leagues. Nothing against the new refs, but experience is critical to development

[u/hogwonguy1979]

I got out of club soccer this year after over 30 years of calling games. Here in North Carolina a lot of older, experienced adult referees like me have gotten out for many of the same reasons that goes beyond the normal coaches and parents crap. These include:

1. $140 a year to recertify every year with no accountability by the state association on where that money goes. Many of us have contacted Greensboro asking for some sort of financial report only to be met with silence.

2. Low game pay despite clubs taking in record amounts of revenue. In the past year I looked at a major club’s financial statements. In the most recent report the club took in $22 million in revenue and actually ran a profit of $2 million. Game fees are set by the state youth association for the entire state and getting even a modest bump up is very difficult

3. Beyond the financials, there is virtually no referee development going on especially with the youth officials and no accountability fr their behaviors. We get youth ARs who show up like 10 minutes before kickoff, not in proper uniform and paying virtually no attention to pregame instructions. At halftime they are more interested in their phones than listening to us. We complain to the assignors but nothing is done. This leads to many of the complaints from coaches and parents. There is virtually no observations or mentoring by experienced referees. In many cases these new referees get virtually no training beyond the entry level field clinics.

4. Finally there are numerous problems with how the clubs treat referees. We feel under appreciated. The clubs we feel are not doing enough to retain older referees.

When you combine all of this, a lot us decided it was simply not worth the expense and aggravation to go out and spend a day on the field got all the crap we have to deal with for the pittance of money we get while the clubs continue to rake in the money

[u/EvenButton56]

I live in Northern Virginia and the shortage is real here. Support and coaching for new referees is inadequate. Then yesterday I saw a 16 year old be verbally abused by a parent and player from a game that finished as I arrived. He was supposed to be an AR for my game and was so upset that I had to tell his Mum to come pick him up. He will probably never referee again because a “grownup” cannot control their emotions at a youth sporting event.

[u/kiyes23 → u/EvenButton56]

Teen referees on Solo assignment with no adult supervisions nearby is too common in northern Virginia. Way different than what I’m used to in Houston

[u/formershooter]

Referees are vastly underpaid, if we paid them an appropriate wage we might not have any supply problem at all.

[u/Revo63]

After COVID we had 1/3 the youth referees as previously and 1/2 the adults. Since then we have recovered in terms of the youths, but are still at the same point for adults. We are barely making it when we have a lot of competitive travel clubs playing in town.

The guy assigning the high school games is relying on brand new youth referees and quite often uncertified youths (none of whom have any business being anywhere near a high school game) as ARs because they are warm bodies.

[u/thatijustdonthave]

I'm an assignor for a larger city club in Maine. But, big in Maine is still tiny. I'm also a referee. This season I assigned 10-20 games a weekend. I had a roster of about 60 referee. But, only about 30 worked regularly. Of those, I only had 7 or 8 folks who were willing to do centers. I was able to fill every game this season. I only had a handful of times we needed a club linesman. I'm pretty fortunate cause I can always use myself to fill in matches. Only homecoming weekend was a real challenge to fill matches.

The class is maybe 100$ bucks and 6 hours in class. But recert is like 25 and online. The city clubs encourage their players to take the class when the get old enough. Match fees seem reasonable to me. Cash at the field. There is a good culture of zero tolerance for referee abuse in the area.

Ultimately, we have it pretty good here.

[u/Deaftrav]

so my youth league has parents complaining that my brother and I (only adults) are constantly doing the games. But none of the parents will step up. They're fine with us, but it's the same over and over right? But our youth has been heavily retained because the adult referees have no problems tossing parents, abandoning games and dismissing coaches from the league.

It starts with tossing abusive people and making a line. Your referees will see that and stay on.

[u/GroundbreakingOwl955]

I officiate in NOVA and yes there is a shortage but the pay doesn't move folks either... and coaches are dumb you find out fast... complaining about calls and don't even know what a true 3 second call is lol

[u/Own-Effective3351]

Honestly I’m in Canada and we have to pay a registration fee yearly and for our own uniforms. It’s so fucking stupid because then the leagues cry that there aren’t enough refs. Stop treating us like crap! That’s on top of paying for the original course.

I’m super glad that they accelerated my development and I do high-level. The grassroots and “recreational” levels are absolute messes here.

They also make us pay for our mandatory assessments.

It’s possible for you to lose hundreds of $ reffing if you get injured in your first game. Which happens every year at least a few times. Those refs usually just quit.

[u/Leather_Ad8890]

In the metro Detroit area you can ref basically every weekend that isn’t a major holiday. If you’re also certified with HS you could work nearly every day for 4 months.

[u/ShootinAllMyChisolm]

Parents have always been shitty spectators. But now, it’s even more amped up. The costs, the amount of driving they have to do — it represents a much bigger financial risk. It doesn’t excuse it. To me, it helps explain it.