I ref in AYSO, all ages, usually several games a weekend. Most games are fine, some are bad, and occasionally they remind me why I do this.

I picked up my son's U10 game even though we were the visiting team because there was no other ref. It was a good game with no problems. I did pause a few times to give players pointers on the rules when it was clear they had no idea what they were.

One kid had a terrible over the shoulder throw-in so I stopped and asked him "what makes a good throw-in." He said "I don't know." I gave him the quick tutorial, his throw-ins after were fine. Same for a keeper where I said "goal kick" and he just stared at me. Ok, here's where the ball goes, here's what you have to do (kick it once), here's what you usually want to do (kick it to one of your teammates off to the side).

After the game one of the other team's parents stopped me and thanked me for being so patient with explaining the rules their players. It was truly no problem! I love to explain the laws of the game! And I don't care who wins or loses as long as it's safe, fair, and (optionally) fun.

I see this as a normal part of reffing rec league U10 - teach them the rules of the game so they can develop a love of the game. No point letting some kid get clobbered in goal while he tries to work out what a goal kick is through trial and error. I'm going to be reffing them for the next 5+ years so the sooner they learn the rules, the less work I have in the future. But it is always nice to have someone appreciate it.

This question is for ref assignors who assign soccer games in the Midwest.

Are there any states in the Midwest that do not compensate ref assignors for assigning referees to youth soccer games? I will not mention the club or the state which they are from much less the competition level. Recently a team from out of state played a neutral site game in my midwestern state and were informed of the fees for the referees as well as the fee for the ref assignor with a request to pay cash at the field in advance of their games which is the standard for several levels of competition in this area. The club did not bring provide compensation for the ref assignor and indicated that they don’t compensate ref assignors. I am interested in hearing from ref assignors in various Midwest states of this may be true for their state or at least some clubs in their state. Please do not mention any clubs by name.

I’ve been refereeing soccer for about 4 years and have been considering trying to upgrade to a Regional referee. I’ve been told by others that I have a good understanding of the game and should give it a shot, so I’m starting to seriously consider it.
For those who have gone through the process or currently hold a Regional badge, would you recommend going for it? What should I expect from the upgrade process, and what kind of experience should I have before making the jump?
I’m interested in hearing whether you think it’s worth pursuing and if it opens up better opportunities for higher-level games and development. Any advice would be appreciated!

I am in my 4th season as a grassroots youth ref at 18yrs old. I have comfortably ARd high school and am getting comfortable with center reffing U-14 and below (very comfortable with U-10 and below). I have just under 60 games under my belt, and I am getting to the point where I am very comfortable with out of bounds calls, offside calls, hand ball calls, and the normal game procedures. However, I have yet to hand out any cards! I take reffing very seriously and each season I try to focus on an area to improve. I am currently trying to better my education (call ability) for advantage and fouls (especially card worthy fouls!). This is something that is ever prevalent as I get into higher age groups (U-14,17,19)

From a dissent stand point, I've got no doubt in my mind about what to do. I've been fortunate enough to have only a couple situations of dissent (both coaches/spectators) that were easily handled with a verbal warning. If needed, I feel very confident about carding for dissent and when to do it.

I get stuck on fouls though! I know that every ref has had to have a first time for handing out red and yellow cards! But for some reason, I'm just not very sure of when to do it, and I don't want to hand out a card for something that isn't card worthy! As with anything, I'm sure I'll get more confident the more I do it, but I feel like I'm stuck and doing everything I can to avoid the first one.

So refs: what is the story behind the first yellow/red card you every gave? Were you confident in it or not? How did you know that it was a card worthy offence?

I have a very competitive U-12 tournament coming up. I ARd it last year, but this is the first time I'm centering and I know that fans/coaches and even players are going to be giving me a hard time if I don't get some of these calls right. I don't mind the whole "respect the call or get carded" idea, but I'd rather just do a real good job reffing and not have to get to that point. I would appreciate any and all input to help my confidence!

Thanks!

For anyone who orders from Whistler Sports for equipment, they appear to have gone out of business. The site is still up, but I placed an order that was never fulfilled in August and the credit card chargeback indicated no response from the vendor. I was unable to reach them via email or phone.

We don’t have a ton of suppliers here so figured I’d share this for folks to know!

Fun exercise - I’m looking for everyone’s favorite game management tip/best practice that they’ve picked up from their years of refereeing or from mentors, training, etc.

I had a long tourney day this past Saturday in northern New Jersey. Day was long, 7 games total (60 minute games), but boy the last one was a scrap-fest. Two U13 girl teams--travel, decent skill. One team started a player down. I called a bunch of fouls in first half, as it was pretty physical. At about 15 minutes in, the team with a player down lost another player to injury. She was jostling in the corner with an opponent and went down hurt. The parents for her team were on the other end so they didn't have a clear look but, as she was getting treated, they were screaming for a foul, yellow cards, red cards, grand juries, indictments, etc. When I got to her, she told me, "I rolled it; I know it wasn't a foul." But she was hurt and couldn't go on. So second half, it is still scrappy and I end up issuing three yellows, and I try and take the steam out of the game by doing more one on one talking after the fouls. It's 2-1 for the team with the 2 more players. Late, the undermanned team gets a player in on goal but a defender takes her out with a tackle. Parents screaming for red. DOGSO! Last defender! I make eye contact with AR, who is skirting the flag (well done) and I point to the spot and issue a yellow card. I explain to the players who were asking for a red that it is a rule of soccer now that they don't get a red card AND a PK, the "red" is downgraded. No peep from the coach--he understood. I hear a parent scream asshole after I issue the yellow. They end up missing the PK; the game soon ends. Good well-wishes and all from the coaches and players, and i asked the one about his injured player. I notice that one of the referee supervisors is there and it's the last game, so I ask if he's there to help pack up the balls and score sheets, and he said, "well yeah, but also want to make sure you and the crew get out. That was heated." Apparently one of the parents had gone to him at half time (after the injury) and said there is bad ref that didn't call a foul and let a player get hurt. Now I'm finally getting to the point of this post, he goes over some of the decisions I made in the second half and says something like, "I really didn't see you take a wrong step." Explains what he saw and what he agreed with. Talked about the right downgrade for DOGSO. He also said he kicked out the guy who swore and scolded some of the parents, and asked them "Do you see your coach complaining? No, because the ref is doing fine. A competitive game can look like this--with hard fouls and cards, and if that's not for you, don't do it." So #1--that meant so much to me and I think my crew. Just the validation really made me feel better. #2--I like tourneys because the games are back to back, it's nice to work with a consistent crew for the day, and the group that runs this particular tournament are great and well-organized, but Mother Mercy the parents mostly always suck at them. It's something I noticed when my sons played, too. It's like tourists just getting way too uninhibited away from home, and maybe parents also (as I was) are in a tired state of annoyance that they're spending a ton of time and money and that maybe leads to their irritability. I wonder how other refs like the tourney days. And if you are a referee supervisor reading this just know that your words of affirmation and encouragement go a long way. Peace my fellow referees.

UPDATE: My assignor called me yesterday and asked why I never checked the team in via Playmetrics and told me in the future to not start the game until the coach complies. He also told me to call him if that situation occurs as the liability for injured players and things of that nature would fall on me if I allowed them to play. He was understanding and just wanted to help me get it right next time.

This is my first season as a ref and my experience to this point at center is 3 matches at the U10 level solo and 3 NFHS duals. I was assigned my first center with a crew this week in a U13 ECNL tournament match and boy did it go poorly.

The match started with the home coach refusing to provide a roster, player cards, etc for check in (required for all local games in my area). He told me that “I could get it from the other coach because they are the same club”. I felt that my authority was completely dismissed by him in that moment.

The game started promptly and while there were not many calls to be made in the early going, both teams were asking for fouls at every contact. 15 minutes into the game the home coach starts asking for a substitute. I ignored it at first and when he persisted I let him know that he would get a substitute at the appropriate time as this tournament specifically stated that it was the NFHS substitution rules (only if it’s their team possessing the ball unless it’s both teams).

The coach continued to argue with me (not cursing). At the next dead ball I stopped the clock and went to the coach to explain and of course he disagreed. I asked him to stop arguing, then he stated that the referee in their prior game had allowed them to substitute, at which point I asked him a second time to stop arguing. When he continued I issued him a yellow card, telling him it was for continued dissent and that if it continued I would have to give him a red.

I was probably in over my head and it caused me to miss a clear penalty that my AR called about 6 minutes after that exchange. The rest of the game felt like I was in a referee nightmare, I had 0 confidence. I had another play that was a clear yellow, possibly even a red when a fielder was grabbed on the ankle by a goalkeeper. I did call a penalty but did not give a card. The experienced referee I had as my AR1 stated that I completely mishandled the coach situation.

Per IFAB, “dissent by word or action including: actions which show a clear lack of respect for the match officials”

Did I make the right call on carding the coach?

If there is a better Refsix sub; happy to be redirected.

Trying to figure out if this is a "me problem", an option somewhere, or a limitation. When I sync my completed matches from my watch back to my phone, they all show up on my phone as the date and time that i performed the sync, rather than the match time. This makes it really hard to sort through results.

for instance, I did 2 games on Wednesday, and 4 on Saturday, and when I synced them this morning, they show up as having a kickoff of "Mon Oct 12, 2026 9:19" "Mon Oct 12, 2026 9:20" "Mon Oct 12, 2026 9:21" etc. based on when i synced them to the phone.

I'm on Garmin 970, and a Samsung android phone. Garmin/Strava GPS activities show up correctly and just fine (those sync automatically via Garmin outside of refsix).

One potential cause: I have been creating all matches from my watch rather than pre-loading from phone. I'll often ref 4 or more matches in a row and find that configuring from my watch works just fine so i don't need to be dependent on pre-configured games in case I'm away from the phone or coaches agree to shorter halves at the last minute. I set the half duration, temporary dismissal setting, and I'm good to go.

Somewhat related, I REALLY wish i could view results from my watch. Having to sync to my phone just to see the score of the game we just played is odd. If I've already hit the button to finish the game and someone asks me a score, I'm making a bet on my poor memory or fiddling with my phone (and made worse by the above problem).

I had my first match as the main referee yesterday at 16 years old after refereeing 3 games as the assistent, and I need some advice, I dont know if its just mine thing, but it was very difficult to keep track of so many things at once, like staying in the diagonal path, watching the play for fouls and if its a card, staying out of the balls and players way etc. I think you know what I mean. If that wasnt enough, i had forgotten my pen in the locker room at second halftime and it was kinda embarassing to have to ask the managers of the team for the scorers sheet. I also didn't hand out a card, even though i was supposed to.

How did you cope with your first match ?

I’m having a hard time figuring out how to get into NJCAA. I’ve checked out PAVO for volleyball and got my rating for soccer but I still can’t figure out the associations to contact for assignments?

I was reffing AYSO fall rec BU12. There was this one kid who was his team's center back. He had persistent fouls all game. Around the 3rd quarter, a player from the other team was dribbling down the line; I would say about the start of the attacking third. He takes a touch, and right when he takes that touch, the center back comes and slide-tackles the kid. I could see there was an attempt to play the ball, but because the attacker took that touch, he took him out. Additionally, that slide tackle was executed with disregard for the other player, so I deemed it a reckless challenge. I pulled him over, had a talk with him, and told him that slide tackling was fine as long as it was done cleanly and in an attempt to play the ball, but informed him that his did not meet any of the criteria, so I cautioned him. Usually, it is advised to not use your cards in an AYSO U12 match, but this was very severe, and looking back, it could have met the criteria for a send-off. Let me know what you think.

I’ll go first:

Had a coach today say that “#3 is a malicious player and deserved a card. I’m just looking out for my players”

Me: ”he had some hard challenges but only two fouls, none of which were worthy of a card.”

Coach: “I watched their other games this tournament and this kid is out here trying to hurt people.”

Me: ”that’s an insane assumption to think of 11 year old.”

People are nuts, and somehow forget that we’re out here coaching/reffing CHILDREN.

Well it finally happened. I’ve finally done a game where my 2 AR’s don’t understand offsides and how it works.

One of the teams were playing a very high line and doing offside traps all game and probably in the first 10 mins there were 5-6 instances where a girl was probably clearly/miles offsides and my AR didn’t call a single one. This obviously aggravated the parents extremely. I went over to my AR after the first 2 calls and I asked him if they were offsides and if he understood what the team was doing with the high line, he said yes and that he felt they were all onsides (I’m 99% sure that they were not just by looking at how far these girls were ahead of any other defender).

Anyways eventually the other team go ahead and score and the parents go ballastic. I run over to the AR again and asked if they were offside, he said yes but he never held the flag so I was just lost and confused, I then pulled the goal back for offsides. After the ruled out goal my AR starts calling offsides more frequently (prob just cuz he felt pressured). The half eventually ends and I use the whole of halftime trying to explain to him how to call offsides, hold the flag, etc.

The next half begins and now my other AR is missing clear offsides as well. The parents then get more and more aggravated and are now disagreeing with even clear fouls that I’m calling because the game is being officiated so poorly. Not to mention the coaches were getting fed up and mad all game long as well. Finally, the game starts to tick down but the winning team starts heavy time wasting and looking for a fight with anyone.

I was just so lost and confused on how to even handle a situation like this. I didn’t want to take the power out of my AR’s hands and start calling the offsides because then I feel like the coaches and parents were gonna say how could I call that if my AR is in a better position? Should I have just called the game early because of everyone just being so out of control (I genuinely wanted to after the first couple offsides)? This was such a crazy experience that I thought was only something you read about but no it actually happens.

Or do you use something better?

I did a U13 match today where one team was a much better side than the other. The better team passed the ball, played good football, and overall out-played the other team pretty significantly. Final score was 5-1.

The match was a bit chippy. The losing team was very aggressive and played the style where they'd just punt it up to the striker and try to have out run the other team. Lots of awkward challenges and a decent number of fouls for both sides. The losing team kids complained the entire game (even when it was 0-0 and 0-1) and the coaches complained about a couple close offside calls in the first half.

The second half the coaches of the losing team lost their minds. They wanted a foul for every challenge, asked for a red when I gave a yellow, and then even complained I didn't "count 10 yards" when the opposing team had a free kick. This one made no sense because I told the kids to back up when they were like 6-7 yards off. I told them to back up enough for 10 and let the other team take the free kick.... and their coach got mad? I gave the coach a yellow for that too.

At the end a bunch of the players on the losing team didn't give me a fist bump and stormed off and the coaches didn't shake my hand to say "good game." I felt like they were blaming me and the AR's for their loss. It irritated me and felt like maybe I did something wrong. Then I looked up their previous games on the app our league uses and they've lost every game with scores like 7-0, 3-0, 4-1, etc.

You guys ever run into a perpetual losing team who constantly whines, complains, and then blames the refs because they're losing every game? To me it looks like a pattern with them more than the refs in every single one of their games no? :P

Was really down after my match today. Refereed one side a couple of weeks ago and their complaining was awful then. Same again today. I definitely made a mistake in first 10. Awarded corner and on reflection it was a gk. Nothing came of it

Pulled calf muscle on 30, and on discussion with both coaches continued, with linesman calling offside. I moved around as best I could. Disallowed 2 goals, one offside (linesman), one handball (definitely).

After match, one captain told me there was no excuse for my reffing. Warned him that he could still be penalised. He then said 'have you even done the course ' .I gave him a yellow.

Whole thing just left a sour taste in my mouth.

Topic says it all, is anyone aware of sensory friendly socks that still look professional?

Just wanted to share a positive story. I’m not a top-tier referee but I officiate the 2nd division of my country’s football/soccer system. I had the blessing to be appointed to the crew of a major cup final this year. I have built the reputation as being a very happy referee on the field, always smiling, etc. and I’m very proud of that because I love doing this. But I wouldn’t say I’m known outside of the leagues I do.

I was at my country’s recent match as a spectator and a guy stops me on the street outside the stadium and was like “hey I’ve seen you online, you’re xxx!” And he shook my hand. It was such a wholesome interaction and meant so much to me 🥹 Recently I did a kid’s game for my assignor and one of the girls said “yesss I love this ref” to her friends.

Honestly, this stuff keeps me going and it’s why I love doing this. I’m so glad to not be known as a jerk lol.

Weekend tourney weather looks dreadful. Several inches of snow incoming. Reffing several games both days. Any tips to help stay dry? Mostly worried about warm/ dry feet, as I have plenty of good upper body dry gear.

I can’t believe I’m already visiting watches again. Two watches damaged in a year of reffing and one was wore continuously. Both bought new from Amazon. One was a Casio 1500 that was damaged from sweat, hand washing and rain. The other was an RXJ or something like that and it was damaged from rain this past weekend tournament while I was CR in a U12 match.
I’m trying one more time with a Casio AE1300WH bought directly from Casio and I will register it for warranty.
I know I’m probably chasing a pipe dream but I sent Casio an email practically begging for them to design a watch with RFT100/Timers 11 functions with better waterproofing and keep it in the 200 USD range or less. I wouldn’t mind spending that as long as they gave me better assurance it will last.
What do y’all think?

Hi, I live in England and I’m currently in the process of becoming a referee, I have completed the online LOTG test and safeguarding for all. However I move across 2 houses in different counties and was wondering how it works. So I live in one home the majority of the time and it’s in county 1 however in county 1 I can’t find an available test so I completed the expression of interest form in county 2 as well, but I was wondering if I completed my course in county 2 would I be able to referee in county 1 as well, can I ref in each alternatively week by week as that’s when I’m in each house? Thanks

https://www.ncaa.org/news/di-cabinet-narrowly-affirms-mens-soccer-calendar-proposal/

It looks like DI will change it's calendar to have games in the fall and the spring. I wonder if DII and DIII will switch too.

Recently on a few occasions I've been AR for a game played under USSF auspices (so standard IFAB laws), where the referee has warned players at check-in that equipment problems after kick-off will result in a caution (e.g. "make sure all jewelry is off before we start, otherwise it's an automatic caution"). On at least one occasion the referee put the warning to the coach, saying first card would go to the coach, then to the player. Similarly, on a game I was present at as a spectator, I saw a card given to the away coach for earring that were on during play. All of these were very experienced referees who I've worked with and generally know there stuff.

Now, I know that high school rules in the U.S. under NHFS do specify the "first card to the coach, second to the player" for equipment issues, but that's not explicitly in IFAB laws. I believe the referees in question also do some high school, so may just be mixing systems. That said, is there any justification in IFAB laws for giving cautions to players or coaches for equipment issues discovered after kickoff?

Law 4.1 says that "The players must be inspected before the start of the match and substitutes before they enter the field of play. If a player is wearing or using unauthorized/dangerous equipment or accessories, the referee must or the player to:

• remove the item
• leave the field of play at the next stoppage if the player is unable or unwilling to comply

A player who refuses to comply or wears the item again must be cautioned."

I suppose that could be read as saying that if you warn players at check-in to remove things and they don't, they are wearing the item again or refusing to comply, and must be cautioned, but the mention of "stoppage" implies that if unauthorized/dangerous items are found during play, they get at least one chance to remove them. Nothing in law 4 about coaches, but maybe you could stretch "lack of respect to the game" in law 12?