What Makes a Good Referee?
Players, Fans and Officials Consider the Question – What Makes a Good Referee?
Taylor Graham - It is a good idea for a ref to know players personalities before each game.
So we talked to an assortment of fans, officials and players and asked them three questions:
1. What makes a good referee?
2. How much should referees talk to the players during the game?
3. Is there too much attempted influencing of refs by players in MLS?
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I think that one thing that would help the referees out immensely is the league reviewing film on games after the fact, and fining/sanctioning players for stuff that they see on video that was missed the first time around- particularly the dives.
Refs are human, we can’t expect them to catch every single thing that happens. At the same time, other than perhaps goals, I can’t really imagine any role for video replay or review DURING the game (and even then I’m hard pressed to imagine reviews of goals).
BUT… the dives are often a lot easier to notice on video after the game than they are at full speed during the game. The ones that turn out to be blatant attempts at drawing a foul should be punished; retroactive yellow cards or fines (or both) would go a long, long way towards slowing that kind of behavior.
This would help remove that part of the game from the ref’s work, and additionally would help their decision making in calling the fouls that actually DO occur. If a player knows that embellishment is liable to get him a post-game booking/fine, he’s going to start playing it clean- and thus a ref will know that if a guy is acting hurt during a game after a foul, it’s much more likely truly serious and deserving of more attention.
The other thing that video review might help with is in the cheap shot stuff that happens away from the ball. An example would be the inexplicable decision to not toss Onstadt when he bulled over Montero. A post-game review should have bumped Pat’s yellow up to a red card. I believe all of the refs missed that at the time and it deserved sanction.
Finally, I agree- Ljungberg whines too much. Better that, though, than Montero’s diving. Better refereeing could help with both.
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again:
If a soccer referee manages the game first, the players will follow suit.
Play the advantage often to keep the flow of game going.
Call a lot of free kicks on the little stuff. Repeated free kick calls in dangerous areas will teach players not to be careless with their tackles.
Only bring out the yellow card to make an example of a messy challenge.
Only bring the red card out if the challenge is blatant and results in injury – OR – on a second messy challenge after a previously issued yellow warning.
Call handballs for penalties only when you can corroborate purposeful contact with the other members of the officiating crew.
And above all, be consistent!
It isn’t rocket science.
Sure, players have egos, a lot of referees get chewed out – but making calls consistently shouldn’t be something that hard to do week in and week out.