I wonder how would this work in terms of fairness to the team that's likely to win. If a match is abandoned, what does it mean for progressing in a tournament, etc. Could there be a perverse incentive to cause a black card to abort a lost game? I'm sure this has all been thought through, but the article doesn't seem to say anything about it.
The new procedure targets inappropriate behavior by parents and spectators directed at children, coaching staff members, referees, match officials, or other parents and spectators. This includes, but is not limited to:
Verbal abuse (insults or profanity), as well as physical assault or shoving of one’s own children;
Verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of staff members of one’s own team;
Verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of players or staff members of the opposing team;
Continuous challenging, verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of referees and match officials;
Verbal or physical altercations with other parents or spectators.
<<<<<<
If that's the situation in, and it can't be stressed enough, a children soccer game, then yes, abandoning the match is probably the right choice. I assume they are only defining a formal procedure for practices that already exist.
>If that's the situation in, and it can't be stressed enough, a children soccer game
It's not extremely common in my area, but it is more common than you would think. Parents treat their children like lottery tickets when it comes to athletics. And God help you if you're the unfortunate umpire at a travel league game that makes a questionable call.
The youth sports industry is fucking gross and nobody seems to notice.
Source: we will not let our children participate in travel leagues and they do not want to participate in them either, for this specific reason.
I umpired baseball in my early teens and even 30 years ago it was bad.
Grown men getting into the face of 14 years old umpires over calls, at games for kids barely out of tee-ball. It just doesn’t matter that much.
I remember a coach who would flip over 20 gallon coolers and send ice and drinks flying in the dugout.. in front of his team of 10 years old umpires olds.
In Texas, there's an association, TASO, that is in charge of referees for all sports. There is no requirement about having experience in officiating at all. You attend a few meetings, pay the fees, and start officiating. The crazy thing is that once a TASO member, you can move from sport to sport. It's easy to see officials that are definitely out of their depth. As a player, it is insulting that they can't play their sport because the one in charge of the match is not very good. As parent, it's aggravating because their kid and teammates are getting boned. After personally experiencing the literal "inside baseball" of Texas high school officiating, they bring some of the flak on their officials in their attitude on who can be an official. I knew people that just slid from one sport to the next based on season as a source of a fairly decent income. Volleyball refs just sit in a chair, so physical fitness doesn't really limit how good of an official they can be. Soccer refs on the other hand...
That's the association's problem, not the referees. When I refereed basketball in Australia, referee grading was done according to FIBA standards and you had to be evaluated before any promotion in your referee grade and that could be (at the lowest levels) 3 games on 3 occasions through to 10 games or more. And when we got to a certain (albeit relatively high) level, we'd have every game recorded and reviewed.
No disagreement, which is why I said that the association is to blame. If a ref isn't good enough yet they still continue to be assigned games, then the org allowing that to happen is at fault. The immediate response is that they don't have enough officials to to start sitting officials based on performance/ability. That's just further indictment to me, but "it's just a kid's game" blah blah.
Baseball in particular has a problem with anger is the arguments. Like there is no argument without a hostile tone. Players/managers never seem to merely appeal a call -- they jump straight to harsh yelling.
Compare it to soccer where there is also a lot of whininess in the complaining about calls.
It's become accepted that vulgar, angry, disagreement is acceptable until it goes "too far".
Tantrums are just socially accepted in baseball, and some other sports.
Probably being born from public schools, and teachers being the referees, they don't have to take any nonsense from players and can take the ball away from you, lose you ground you have gained, or card you if are abusive to the referee.
Abusive parents on the sidelines can result in sanctions on clubs.
Even if you think the referee made a bad call, it is never acceptable to be abusive to match officials.
It blows my mind the things I see in football they allow people to get away with.
I love how in rugby if two guys are going a little two hard at each other the referee will call them over along with their captains, and address the captains while these gigantic players stand there like children.
One other offshoot of rugby officiating is they will admit wrongs and they'll say things like "I didn't see that." Compare that to the NFL where the refs make a bad call and the league will back them up to the point of being ridiculous by reinterpreting the rules to make the officials right (see "not a catch").
Absolutely - I used to referee basketball in Australia, including at a high level.
Extremely high level junior, was generally not an issue. As was true local league.
It was the intermediates, the travel leagues. Where "your kid is good but is still not going to be a pro" (the NBA sends a letter to all new D1 college players congratulating them on the effort they've put in to get this far - and to focus on their education, as the NBA drafts <1% of D1 college players, let alone anybody else). Those were the ones where the parents were convinced that their kid was going to be a pro and the only thing holding him back was "that fucking referee".
We had the power to eject those parents from the venue. Which was usually a conversation that went something like this:
Ref: You need to leave the venue until the end of the game.
Parent: It's my fucking kid's game and I'm not leaving and you can't fucking make me.
Ref: You're right, I can't remove you from the venue. I can however forfeit the game on your child's behalf.
Kid: Daaaad. [usually weary as this tends not to happen just the once]. Go and wait in the car. Pleaseeeee.
Parent: I will go and wait in the car, and we're going to wait and when you come out, you and I are going to fucking get into it, ref.
Cue security, if not police, walking refs to their cars.
I spent several years as a soccer ref including high school matches. It never failed that every time I hit my whistle, the side of the stadium opposite of the direction of me signaling the foul would always erupt in jeers. You could always tell the helicopter parents complaining about non-calls not appreciating that soccer is a contact sport. There was only one game where the officiating crew was escorted by police, but I really felt that was over blowing the situation. There was the one game were we had to temporarily suspend the match because of gunfire in the area not aimed at the pitch, but uncomfortably close.
The funny thing is, I became a ref because I was giving the ref of one of the games I was on the touchline coaching wasn't abusive, but definitely a constant barrage of second guessing. At the end of the match, one of the association members suggest that if I didn't like the level of refereeing that I should become a ref myself. I accepted the Pepsi challenge that rest of history. My favorite experience was a coach that was getting a bit grating. I remembered a line an old timer mentioned that I decided to give a try, "hey coach! you got an assistant? you better get 'em warmed up!"
As a coach, the absolute worst part of the 10 year experience absolutely was the parents. Luckily, I never had abusive parts. It was always over excited cheering for the dumbest things from people that had no clue about tactics and thinking that blindly booting the ball up the pitch was awesome. We had no player with the speed or skill of going over the top route one, so it was just a dumb play. Usually, by the end of the season some of the other parents could usually get them calmed down. It also helped to remind some of the over the top parents that this was recreational play, and everyone got the same t-shirt at the end of the season. Nobody was getting scholarships. It was basically bragging rights for the kids back at school.
As teens my brother and I both refed youth soccer. The parents were the absolute worst part of the experience. One of them actually followed my brother back to his car after a game to yell at him more. It was so bad that the ref association took the guy to what I've always called "soccer court" (not sure what it actually was) to have him banned from coming back for the rest of the season. That was a U-12 girls rec game by the way.
That's the perfect age for shitty parents as that's the age where the "good" players have left rec and moved to club teams so that the ones that are left are the ones with bent out of shape parents for their kid not making a club team.
Not all parents are assholes, and as a solo coach, there's no way I could have survived without some of the parent's support with various aspects of managing a team. By the third or fourth season, the parents that had started with me would help wrangle some of the other parents.
> By the third or fourth season, the parents that had started with me would help wrangle some of the other parents
This is where we were with one of my kids' teams. Once they got older and split into the elite-national/regional club level (about U12), the parents were not healthy. Over time, the parents started to realize that their kid wasn't likely to play D1 college soccer, so there wasn't a point in being "those parents".
It also helped that a few of us that either coached, played, or ref'd would "help guide" the other parents. It is now to the point where I wouldn't want my kid to change teams because our parents are so awesome.
Happened last week in the Netherlands. The home team (FC Utrecht) played terrible. They were down 3-1. Hooligans threw fireworks on the pitch and the match got suspended. The match was resumed three days later. Utrecht played much better en got a 3-3 draw.
The ref is impartial and their only job is to manage the game according to law. If a team's fans are misbehaving to the point the game must be abandoned, it doesn't matter one iota to the ref if those fans are tanking on purpose. The league can deal with that.
That's placing a lot of faith in the maturity and tactical awareness of a teenager. I don't know about the games in Romania, but here in the US, the youth soccer referees are mostly older youths.
In the US, only the youngest games have teenage refs (U10 and younger). And even then, it is only common in the lower competitive tiers. Competitive travel/select league games generally have adult refs (national and regional leagues).
The money is pretty decent for two hours of work (and you can work games back to back to back).
Your comment implies the youth refs are the exception, but the VAST majority of play are at these lower competitive levels, and it is FAR more common to have youth or inexperienced refs than otherwise.
I’m saying that when you get to have games involving kids older than 10, that having teenage refs is more uncommon.
In my area, there are a number of leagues. Only one has a large number of teenagers in the ref pool and they only are center refs for the youngest players. For the more competitive leagues, you almost never have a ref crew made up of only teenagers. Here, young refs are generally protected by having older refs as part of the crew. There is a whole system behind referee scheduling that most people don’t know about.
(Also, this about soccer in the US, I have no idea how other sports schedule their officials)
When you say “teenage” refs I assume you are meaning kids 16or younger. A lot of adult-sized college-age teenagers ref games and you probably don’t realize it.
You’re right about the scheduling aspect. If you’re in a healthy area and the leagues are playing according to US Soccer rules (using the IFAB bible plus approved grassroots modifications), the scheduling system is good and makes sure to keep refs assigned to appropriate matches (pro-tip: they keep track of the worst teams for abuse and only schedule the most grizzled refs. If none are available, then “sorry no refs are available for your match”).
Also, I don’t know if it’s US-only thing or a worldwide FIFA thing, but for the past few years refs with less than 2 or 3 years of experience are supposed to be wearing a special armband that coaches are supposed to recognize - if the ref gets abuse from fans they tell the coaches and the coaches have to go deal with it. If it’s not dealt with, the match is abandoned.
When a ref abandons a match it is up to the board to decide what to do with the result. In senior games often the offenders get a lost. Plus this is youth games so results matter less.
In which case, abusive parents can use the rule to retaliate against their children. Never define a rule that gives bad actors power to dictate policy. (Note: this criticism doesn't seem to apply to the actual rule.)
As a ref if I had parent who was more involved than they needed to be - I'd let em go for a while, at a good stopping point I'd blow the whistle, jog over to them, maybe slow to a walk, just slow enough that everyone would be wondering what is the ref doing what are we wasting time for... Then I'd explain to them how they are really being helpful and I really appreciate their help. You know, with just a hint of sarcasm...
Make sure my explanation was loud enough for some other parents to hear. I'd never hear from them again.. hahaa I miss being a ref
I used to introduce myself to the cop who would work each wrestling tournament our teams were in. They always had a chill time at wrestling, and I asked them which sport was the worst. Basketball. Every single one of them said basketball without hesitation.
> The black card being brandished will be the final part of a three-step process. In the first instance, the referee will temporarily suspend the match and ask coaches to speak directly to its team’s supporters and parents, while an announcement will also be communicated to supporters should a public address system be available.
> Should the behaviour continue, the referee will suspend the match for 10 minutes and send the teams off the pitch to their dressing room while once again asking coaches to attempt to de-escalate the behaviour of those in the stands.
> The FRF then detail the process behind using the black card as the final step: “If abusive behaviour persists after play resumes, the referee blows the final whistle. The match is permanently abandoned and cannot be resumed.”
Why is the remedy not simply ejecting the offenders? They get three chances to cancel the game, with the entirety of the punishments being towards people who did nothing wrong?
This is a common misconception. The referee has no control over who is in the stands - they are “outside agents”. Many people think that the referee can eject a spectator, but they can’t. The referee only has authority over the players and coaches.
This is why the first remedy is to ask the coaches to get their parents under control. In general, if the abuse continues, the coach can be carded as that’s the only person the ref can discipline.
I referee volleyball. Our instructions are to get the home team - preferably the athletic director or somebody similar but ultimately the home coach if there's no one else - to do something about somebody behaving in an unacceptable way.
We're advised not to act too friendly with coaches because some people might think we're favoring their team. Involving the coach if you don't have to might create the opposite impression, that you're upset with the coach or team.
I've never experienced or heard of this being an issue in volleyball. I'm sure it's happened, particularly at the club level where parents are paying big money for their kids to play. Other sports, particularly basketball or football, it definitely happens.
Came to say the same. Except it is the team captain that you should address.
Typically they will then escalate to the coach/club coordinator or something. By the time that is finished the guilty party has either left by their own volition already or through the other spectators.
Volleyball is a chill sport and I have had only once in refereeing junior games (<16/18) that a spectator went to far.
Most shenanigans if any is typically directed at the referees not even the players.
There has been a slight uptake in nastiness that I attribute to the sport becoming more popular.
(Context: the Netherlands, 12 years of experience from the lowest classes to 2nd division)
From my experience, the refs typically assign responsibility to the head coach of the team the fans represent. It's not the refs job to manage the fans. They are there to manage the game. If the coach or staff determine the problem fans should be removed, they can do that.
I remember a parent being "ejected" when I was younger. Technically, they didn't "have to leave", but social pressure is enough for them to recognize they should leave the situation.
* All of the parents already know who the abusive parent is
* The first warning was the coach talking to the "entire group" (at a natural stopping point). The group dialed it back (there will always be some controversial calls), but that one parent didn't get the message.
* Finally, the game stopped suddenly (ball was in play, but in a neutral position) and they we're directly addressed by the ref.
This caught the abusers attention. This was an abnormal event. They were being addressed directly. Whether they realized they were the problem, they certainly recognized the social pressure. They recognized how embarrassing it was (sadly, they probably didn't realize how embarrassing it was for their kid) and decided to take the ref's suggestion to cool down.
I doubt many refs want this responsibility, even if it were feasible. And I don't think it is feasible in most cases. For instance, how is the ref going to pick out the problem fans while also managing the game itself? And how is the ref supposed to enforce the removal?
Keep in mind these refs are often volunteers, working solo, have no official connection to the teams or field owners.
And there is a ref shortage virtually everywhere, at all levels and sports. Making it more difficult just isn't realistic.
> Why is the remedy not simply ejecting the offenders?
Because if the situation is so heated up to warrant an abort, you'd need security staff or even riot police to yeet the offenders.
And no, I'm not joking. Private security staff ain't gonna break up a mob of 40 people bashing each others' heads in [1], and when it's 70 people involved [2], you gotta pray that they've KO'd each other out because even riot cops won't break up a fight club that large.
Result is a permanent cancellation? Does that mean the match is nullified or the winner at the time wins? Either way, one team could draw a strategic black card. Seems like cancellation of the match is not the correct outcome. What about penalizing the harassing team? A red card result for the team (down a player for the next game). This seems like an odd way to handle abusive behavior from parents. Abandoning the current game may be good if parents are behaving that way, but there needs to be a serious consequence for the parent's team too. Otherwise it will just be another tool.
Abandoned matches are reviewed by the relevant league, and depending on the reason and circumstances the match can be replayed, resumed, or adjudicated. When a side is judged to be at fault, the outcome is often a default 3-0 loss for them, on top of assorted punishments for the players/coaches/teams involved.
Why are you assuming abuse by parents is solely being targeted at the opposing team’s players? Parents may just as well be shouting at their own kid for what they see as “sub-optimal” play, and at their kid’s teammates for what they see as “getting in their kid’s way.”
I'm not sure why you think I was assuming that. Or why either of those wouldn't be a valid reason their actions shouldn't result in punishment the most direct way possible to the parent. A loss for their own team. That's not a good outcome for someone who treats their kid as a lottery ticket no matter who they were harassing. Although I do understand the response in a sibling post that it still gives the asshat parent some degree of control over policy and outcome. It seems like you may have mistaken some of what I said as implying something about the recipient of the abuse. Nothing I said had anything to do with the recipient of abuse. Just the parent and the team they want to win for vicarious satisfaction.
The attitudes and behaviors at my son's U9 matches in Switzerland are so distasteful I started inventing excuses to not go until eventually my wife went to a tournament. She came home and said, "so that's why you don't want to go any more, huh?"
Youth football is a plague on children. My other children were smart enough to choose tennis and horses. I'm counting the games until my son realizes football is cesspool and asks to do literally anything else.
FTA: “The black card being brandished will be the final part of a three-step process. In the first instance, the referee will temporarily suspend the match and ask coaches to speak directly to its team’s supporters and parents, while an announcement will also be communicated to supporters should a public address system be available.”
So, that’s exactly what step one of this is: a signal to the crowd “behave yourself/make the bad actors behave themselves”.
I’m sure the league has considered less drastic actions, and in reality a group of administrators dealing with an ongoing problem know way more about possible solutions that are available and can possibly work than random HN commenters.
You can't start doing this, the only way it ends is with a full rainbow deck of cards that the referee has to spend 5 minutes digging through every time someone gets tripped.
Long before it gets that far, soccer needs to end in the country.
For most people, soccer is a fun, pass time, and they are not abusive, and things work well. Overall there are enough cases of abuse that they have to go one step down the slippery slope and do something. That doesn't mean they have to go all the way. I don't know where the future will go. I suspect and hope that this is as far as it ever goes. But if things continue getting worse, maybe Romania has to say, 'that's enough. We're not going to do soccer anymore'.
And I'm serious about Romania completely stopping soccer in a country if things continue to get worse after this. Now there's probably a few other rules that they will need to adjust and tweak over the years, but if abusive fans and or abusive parents continue as a problem that means that the people of the country can't handle the game. No more Romania Intl the World Cup. They're not going to send a team because they don't allow soccer anymore.
Don't let it get that far. Whatever sport you do. Cheer when the opposing team makes a good play. Congratulate to the on a win.
I can accept bad officials as long as they're unbiased. As long as they're making bad calls against both teams or missing calls against both teams, I can deal with that. It's when the official is biased and making calls against one team that they're going to let go for the other team, that's when I have a problem. However you deal with that at the league level not in a game
Actual source article: https://www.frf.ro/en/frf-introduces-the-black-card-to-comba...
I wonder how would this work in terms of fairness to the team that's likely to win. If a match is abandoned, what does it mean for progressing in a tournament, etc. Could there be a perverse incentive to cause a black card to abort a lost game? I'm sure this has all been thought through, but the article doesn't seem to say anything about it.
Quoting from the official website:
>>>>>>
The new procedure targets inappropriate behavior by parents and spectators directed at children, coaching staff members, referees, match officials, or other parents and spectators. This includes, but is not limited to:
Verbal abuse (insults or profanity), as well as physical assault or shoving of one’s own children;
Verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of staff members of one’s own team;
Verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of players or staff members of the opposing team;
Continuous challenging, verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of referees and match officials;
Verbal or physical altercations with other parents or spectators.
<<<<<<
If that's the situation in, and it can't be stressed enough, a children soccer game, then yes, abandoning the match is probably the right choice. I assume they are only defining a formal procedure for practices that already exist.
>If that's the situation in, and it can't be stressed enough, a children soccer game
It's not extremely common in my area, but it is more common than you would think. Parents treat their children like lottery tickets when it comes to athletics. And God help you if you're the unfortunate umpire at a travel league game that makes a questionable call.
The youth sports industry is fucking gross and nobody seems to notice.
Source: we will not let our children participate in travel leagues and they do not want to participate in them either, for this specific reason.
I umpired baseball in my early teens and even 30 years ago it was bad.
Grown men getting into the face of 14 years old umpires over calls, at games for kids barely out of tee-ball. It just doesn’t matter that much.
I remember a coach who would flip over 20 gallon coolers and send ice and drinks flying in the dugout.. in front of his team of 10 years old umpires olds.
I officiated basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball about 15-20 years ago on the west coast.
It was bad then. So many drunk parents in baseball. I tossed parents from basketball games for cussing at their kids. Volleyball was pretty chill tho.
In Texas, there's an association, TASO, that is in charge of referees for all sports. There is no requirement about having experience in officiating at all. You attend a few meetings, pay the fees, and start officiating. The crazy thing is that once a TASO member, you can move from sport to sport. It's easy to see officials that are definitely out of their depth. As a player, it is insulting that they can't play their sport because the one in charge of the match is not very good. As parent, it's aggravating because their kid and teammates are getting boned. After personally experiencing the literal "inside baseball" of Texas high school officiating, they bring some of the flak on their officials in their attitude on who can be an official. I knew people that just slid from one sport to the next based on season as a source of a fairly decent income. Volleyball refs just sit in a chair, so physical fitness doesn't really limit how good of an official they can be. Soccer refs on the other hand...
That's the association's problem, not the referees. When I refereed basketball in Australia, referee grading was done according to FIBA standards and you had to be evaluated before any promotion in your referee grade and that could be (at the lowest levels) 3 games on 3 occasions through to 10 games or more. And when we got to a certain (albeit relatively high) level, we'd have every game recorded and reviewed.
No disagreement, which is why I said that the association is to blame. If a ref isn't good enough yet they still continue to be assigned games, then the org allowing that to happen is at fault. The immediate response is that they don't have enough officials to to start sitting officials based on performance/ability. That's just further indictment to me, but "it's just a kid's game" blah blah.
Baseball in particular has a problem with anger is the arguments. Like there is no argument without a hostile tone. Players/managers never seem to merely appeal a call -- they jump straight to harsh yelling.
Compare it to soccer where there is also a lot of whininess in the complaining about calls.
It's become accepted that vulgar, angry, disagreement is acceptable until it goes "too far".
Tantrums are just socially accepted in baseball, and some other sports.
This is one of the reasons I like rugby.
Probably being born from public schools, and teachers being the referees, they don't have to take any nonsense from players and can take the ball away from you, lose you ground you have gained, or card you if are abusive to the referee.
Abusive parents on the sidelines can result in sanctions on clubs.
Even if you think the referee made a bad call, it is never acceptable to be abusive to match officials.
It blows my mind the things I see in football they allow people to get away with.
I love how in rugby if two guys are going a little two hard at each other the referee will call them over along with their captains, and address the captains while these gigantic players stand there like children.
One other offshoot of rugby officiating is they will admit wrongs and they'll say things like "I didn't see that." Compare that to the NFL where the refs make a bad call and the league will back them up to the point of being ridiculous by reinterpreting the rules to make the officials right (see "not a catch").
Rugby is so refreshing.
Absolutely - I used to referee basketball in Australia, including at a high level.
Extremely high level junior, was generally not an issue. As was true local league.
It was the intermediates, the travel leagues. Where "your kid is good but is still not going to be a pro" (the NBA sends a letter to all new D1 college players congratulating them on the effort they've put in to get this far - and to focus on their education, as the NBA drafts <1% of D1 college players, let alone anybody else). Those were the ones where the parents were convinced that their kid was going to be a pro and the only thing holding him back was "that fucking referee".
We had the power to eject those parents from the venue. Which was usually a conversation that went something like this:
Ref: You need to leave the venue until the end of the game.
Parent: It's my fucking kid's game and I'm not leaving and you can't fucking make me.
Ref: You're right, I can't remove you from the venue. I can however forfeit the game on your child's behalf.
Kid: Daaaad. [usually weary as this tends not to happen just the once]. Go and wait in the car. Pleaseeeee.
Parent: I will go and wait in the car, and we're going to wait and when you come out, you and I are going to fucking get into it, ref.
Cue security, if not police, walking refs to their cars.
I spent several years as a soccer ref including high school matches. It never failed that every time I hit my whistle, the side of the stadium opposite of the direction of me signaling the foul would always erupt in jeers. You could always tell the helicopter parents complaining about non-calls not appreciating that soccer is a contact sport. There was only one game where the officiating crew was escorted by police, but I really felt that was over blowing the situation. There was the one game were we had to temporarily suspend the match because of gunfire in the area not aimed at the pitch, but uncomfortably close.
The funny thing is, I became a ref because I was giving the ref of one of the games I was on the touchline coaching wasn't abusive, but definitely a constant barrage of second guessing. At the end of the match, one of the association members suggest that if I didn't like the level of refereeing that I should become a ref myself. I accepted the Pepsi challenge that rest of history. My favorite experience was a coach that was getting a bit grating. I remembered a line an old timer mentioned that I decided to give a try, "hey coach! you got an assistant? you better get 'em warmed up!"
As a coach, the absolute worst part of the 10 year experience absolutely was the parents. Luckily, I never had abusive parts. It was always over excited cheering for the dumbest things from people that had no clue about tactics and thinking that blindly booting the ball up the pitch was awesome. We had no player with the speed or skill of going over the top route one, so it was just a dumb play. Usually, by the end of the season some of the other parents could usually get them calmed down. It also helped to remind some of the over the top parents that this was recreational play, and everyone got the same t-shirt at the end of the season. Nobody was getting scholarships. It was basically bragging rights for the kids back at school.
As teens my brother and I both refed youth soccer. The parents were the absolute worst part of the experience. One of them actually followed my brother back to his car after a game to yell at him more. It was so bad that the ref association took the guy to what I've always called "soccer court" (not sure what it actually was) to have him banned from coming back for the rest of the season. That was a U-12 girls rec game by the way.
That's the perfect age for shitty parents as that's the age where the "good" players have left rec and moved to club teams so that the ones that are left are the ones with bent out of shape parents for their kid not making a club team.
Not all parents are assholes, and as a solo coach, there's no way I could have survived without some of the parent's support with various aspects of managing a team. By the third or fourth season, the parents that had started with me would help wrangle some of the other parents.
> By the third or fourth season, the parents that had started with me would help wrangle some of the other parents
This is where we were with one of my kids' teams. Once they got older and split into the elite-national/regional club level (about U12), the parents were not healthy. Over time, the parents started to realize that their kid wasn't likely to play D1 college soccer, so there wasn't a point in being "those parents".
It also helped that a few of us that either coached, played, or ref'd would "help guide" the other parents. It is now to the point where I wouldn't want my kid to change teams because our parents are so awesome.
Reminds me of the Goodies take on this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnCsT_6LnZc
RIP Bill Oddie.
>youth sports industry
Yup, well there's your problem.
Yeah if I had a parent doing that I'd fucking tell to em go sit in the car otherwise this game's over
..physical assault or shoving of one’s own children
damn. I feel like ideally the police or CPS should be called. Forfeiting the game seems like a mild consequence.
Happened last week in the Netherlands. The home team (FC Utrecht) played terrible. They were down 3-1. Hooligans threw fireworks on the pitch and the match got suspended. The match was resumed three days later. Utrecht played much better en got a 3-3 draw.
I imagine this is the referee's call; a ref ought to know better than to abort the game because the losing team is throwing a tactical tantrum.
The ref is impartial and their only job is to manage the game according to law. If a team's fans are misbehaving to the point the game must be abandoned, it doesn't matter one iota to the ref if those fans are tanking on purpose. The league can deal with that.
That's placing a lot of faith in the maturity and tactical awareness of a teenager. I don't know about the games in Romania, but here in the US, the youth soccer referees are mostly older youths.
In the US, only the youngest games have teenage refs (U10 and younger). And even then, it is only common in the lower competitive tiers. Competitive travel/select league games generally have adult refs (national and regional leagues).
The money is pretty decent for two hours of work (and you can work games back to back to back).
Your comment implies the youth refs are the exception, but the VAST majority of play are at these lower competitive levels, and it is FAR more common to have youth or inexperienced refs than otherwise.
I’m saying that when you get to have games involving kids older than 10, that having teenage refs is more uncommon.
In my area, there are a number of leagues. Only one has a large number of teenagers in the ref pool and they only are center refs for the youngest players. For the more competitive leagues, you almost never have a ref crew made up of only teenagers. Here, young refs are generally protected by having older refs as part of the crew. There is a whole system behind referee scheduling that most people don’t know about.
(Also, this about soccer in the US, I have no idea how other sports schedule their officials)
When you say “teenage” refs I assume you are meaning kids 16or younger. A lot of adult-sized college-age teenagers ref games and you probably don’t realize it.
You’re right about the scheduling aspect. If you’re in a healthy area and the leagues are playing according to US Soccer rules (using the IFAB bible plus approved grassroots modifications), the scheduling system is good and makes sure to keep refs assigned to appropriate matches (pro-tip: they keep track of the worst teams for abuse and only schedule the most grizzled refs. If none are available, then “sorry no refs are available for your match”).
Also, I don’t know if it’s US-only thing or a worldwide FIFA thing, but for the past few years refs with less than 2 or 3 years of experience are supposed to be wearing a special armband that coaches are supposed to recognize - if the ref gets abuse from fans they tell the coaches and the coaches have to go deal with it. If it’s not dealt with, the match is abandoned.
When a ref abandons a match it is up to the board to decide what to do with the result. In senior games often the offenders get a lost. Plus this is youth games so results matter less.
> ...this is youth games so results matter less.
Have you ever been to a kid's sporting event?
I would assume it’s treated as if the team of the offending parent has abandoned the match.
This still can be gamed.
This makes more sense. Automatic loss for the offending parent.
In which case, abusive parents can use the rule to retaliate against their children. Never define a rule that gives bad actors power to dictate policy. (Note: this criticism doesn't seem to apply to the actual rule.)
Safety is far more important than deciding who won a youth match
One can imagine overzealous parents tactically causing a scene to nullify a match result.
As a ref if I had parent who was more involved than they needed to be - I'd let em go for a while, at a good stopping point I'd blow the whistle, jog over to them, maybe slow to a walk, just slow enough that everyone would be wondering what is the ref doing what are we wasting time for... Then I'd explain to them how they are really being helpful and I really appreciate their help. You know, with just a hint of sarcasm...
Make sure my explanation was loud enough for some other parents to hear. I'd never hear from them again.. hahaa I miss being a ref
https://archive.ph/o4V1W
We could use one for US Little League.
Ever watched the parents at those games?
I used to introduce myself to the cop who would work each wrestling tournament our teams were in. They always had a chill time at wrestling, and I asked them which sport was the worst. Basketball. Every single one of them said basketball without hesitation.
> The black card being brandished will be the final part of a three-step process. In the first instance, the referee will temporarily suspend the match and ask coaches to speak directly to its team’s supporters and parents, while an announcement will also be communicated to supporters should a public address system be available.
> Should the behaviour continue, the referee will suspend the match for 10 minutes and send the teams off the pitch to their dressing room while once again asking coaches to attempt to de-escalate the behaviour of those in the stands.
> The FRF then detail the process behind using the black card as the final step: “If abusive behaviour persists after play resumes, the referee blows the final whistle. The match is permanently abandoned and cannot be resumed.”
Why is the remedy not simply ejecting the offenders? They get three chances to cancel the game, with the entirety of the punishments being towards people who did nothing wrong?
This is a common misconception. The referee has no control over who is in the stands - they are “outside agents”. Many people think that the referee can eject a spectator, but they can’t. The referee only has authority over the players and coaches.
This is why the first remedy is to ask the coaches to get their parents under control. In general, if the abuse continues, the coach can be carded as that’s the only person the ref can discipline.
I referee volleyball. Our instructions are to get the home team - preferably the athletic director or somebody similar but ultimately the home coach if there's no one else - to do something about somebody behaving in an unacceptable way.
We're advised not to act too friendly with coaches because some people might think we're favoring their team. Involving the coach if you don't have to might create the opposite impression, that you're upset with the coach or team.
I've never experienced or heard of this being an issue in volleyball. I'm sure it's happened, particularly at the club level where parents are paying big money for their kids to play. Other sports, particularly basketball or football, it definitely happens.
Came to say the same. Except it is the team captain that you should address.
Typically they will then escalate to the coach/club coordinator or something. By the time that is finished the guilty party has either left by their own volition already or through the other spectators.
Volleyball is a chill sport and I have had only once in refereeing junior games (<16/18) that a spectator went to far.
Most shenanigans if any is typically directed at the referees not even the players.
There has been a slight uptake in nastiness that I attribute to the sport becoming more popular.
(Context: the Netherlands, 12 years of experience from the lowest classes to 2nd division)
From my experience, the refs typically assign responsibility to the head coach of the team the fans represent. It's not the refs job to manage the fans. They are there to manage the game. If the coach or staff determine the problem fans should be removed, they can do that.
If it's anything like the UK then it's likely the games are played in a public space like a park, so it might not be possible to eject the parent.
I remember a parent being "ejected" when I was younger. Technically, they didn't "have to leave", but social pressure is enough for them to recognize they should leave the situation.
* All of the parents already know who the abusive parent is
* The first warning was the coach talking to the "entire group" (at a natural stopping point). The group dialed it back (there will always be some controversial calls), but that one parent didn't get the message.
* Finally, the game stopped suddenly (ball was in play, but in a neutral position) and they we're directly addressed by the ref.
This caught the abusers attention. This was an abnormal event. They were being addressed directly. Whether they realized they were the problem, they certainly recognized the social pressure. They recognized how embarrassing it was (sadly, they probably didn't realize how embarrassing it was for their kid) and decided to take the ref's suggestion to cool down.
I don't buy it. You can kick someone out of a park for not following the rules of the park. The refs just need to be empowered.
You don't need any real legal basis. We're talking about kids sporting events. Social pressure is often enough.
You don't want to be the reason your kids team lost. You don't want your kid getting kicked of their team for your behavior.
I doubt many refs want this responsibility, even if it were feasible. And I don't think it is feasible in most cases. For instance, how is the ref going to pick out the problem fans while also managing the game itself? And how is the ref supposed to enforce the removal?
Keep in mind these refs are often volunteers, working solo, have no official connection to the teams or field owners.
And there is a ref shortage virtually everywhere, at all levels and sports. Making it more difficult just isn't realistic.
There is nobody to do that. And nobody to make sure they don’t just come straight back.
Authorised persons can kick someone out of a park. A ref's authority stops at the pitch/ people registered with the sport's body.
> Why is the remedy not simply ejecting the offenders?
Because if the situation is so heated up to warrant an abort, you'd need security staff or even riot police to yeet the offenders.
And no, I'm not joking. Private security staff ain't gonna break up a mob of 40 people bashing each others' heads in [1], and when it's 70 people involved [2], you gotta pray that they've KO'd each other out because even riot cops won't break up a fight club that large.
[1] https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/heilbronn/m...
[2] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/erlangen-massenschlaege...
Result is a permanent cancellation? Does that mean the match is nullified or the winner at the time wins? Either way, one team could draw a strategic black card. Seems like cancellation of the match is not the correct outcome. What about penalizing the harassing team? A red card result for the team (down a player for the next game). This seems like an odd way to handle abusive behavior from parents. Abandoning the current game may be good if parents are behaving that way, but there needs to be a serious consequence for the parent's team too. Otherwise it will just be another tool.
Abandoned matches are reviewed by the relevant league, and depending on the reason and circumstances the match can be replayed, resumed, or adjudicated. When a side is judged to be at fault, the outcome is often a default 3-0 loss for them, on top of assorted punishments for the players/coaches/teams involved.
For other kinds of match cancellations with an offending party (example: having too many players sent off), the offending party automatically loses.
I expect it to be the same here, with the referee deciding who the offending party is.
Why are you assuming abuse by parents is solely being targeted at the opposing team’s players? Parents may just as well be shouting at their own kid for what they see as “sub-optimal” play, and at their kid’s teammates for what they see as “getting in their kid’s way.”
I'm not sure why you think I was assuming that. Or why either of those wouldn't be a valid reason their actions shouldn't result in punishment the most direct way possible to the parent. A loss for their own team. That's not a good outcome for someone who treats their kid as a lottery ticket no matter who they were harassing. Although I do understand the response in a sibling post that it still gives the asshat parent some degree of control over policy and outcome. It seems like you may have mistaken some of what I said as implying something about the recipient of the abuse. Nothing I said had anything to do with the recipient of abuse. Just the parent and the team they want to win for vicarious satisfaction.
The attitudes and behaviors at my son's U9 matches in Switzerland are so distasteful I started inventing excuses to not go until eventually my wife went to a tournament. She came home and said, "so that's why you don't want to go any more, huh?"
Youth football is a plague on children. My other children were smart enough to choose tennis and horses. I'm counting the games until my son realizes football is cesspool and asks to do literally anything else.
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This is Romania, not the US.
It’s almost as if there isn’t very much in common between Romanian youth soccer and US software development
Also, black cards already exist in other sports: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_card
New way to bully unlocked: join as spectator and throw slurs to force game closure.
In reality, the game needs paused, and to forcably eject bad actors, then resume game.
FTA: “The black card being brandished will be the final part of a three-step process. In the first instance, the referee will temporarily suspend the match and ask coaches to speak directly to its team’s supporters and parents, while an announcement will also be communicated to supporters should a public address system be available.”
So, that’s exactly what step one of this is: a signal to the crowd “behave yourself/make the bad actors behave themselves”.
I’m sure the league has considered less drastic actions, and in reality a group of administrators dealing with an ongoing problem know way more about possible solutions that are available and can possibly work than random HN commenters.
Basically a red card for spectators. Not sure why it is black.
Because it does not remove a spectator, it ends the entire match. Please read the article.
Did you read the article? The card stops play and can be used to end the match if abuse continues.
You can't start doing this, the only way it ends is with a full rainbow deck of cards that the referee has to spend 5 minutes digging through every time someone gets tripped.
Long before it gets that far, soccer needs to end in the country.
For most people, soccer is a fun, pass time, and they are not abusive, and things work well. Overall there are enough cases of abuse that they have to go one step down the slippery slope and do something. That doesn't mean they have to go all the way. I don't know where the future will go. I suspect and hope that this is as far as it ever goes. But if things continue getting worse, maybe Romania has to say, 'that's enough. We're not going to do soccer anymore'.
And I'm serious about Romania completely stopping soccer in a country if things continue to get worse after this. Now there's probably a few other rules that they will need to adjust and tweak over the years, but if abusive fans and or abusive parents continue as a problem that means that the people of the country can't handle the game. No more Romania Intl the World Cup. They're not going to send a team because they don't allow soccer anymore.
Don't let it get that far. Whatever sport you do. Cheer when the opposing team makes a good play. Congratulate to the on a win.
I can accept bad officials as long as they're unbiased. As long as they're making bad calls against both teams or missing calls against both teams, I can deal with that. It's when the official is biased and making calls against one team that they're going to let go for the other team, that's when I have a problem. However you deal with that at the league level not in a game
Did you really pull the "slippery slope" on a change for children football matches to safeguarding them from abuse from spectators?