You Make the Call: Is Berbatov Offside? (NOTE: Image has been Photoshopped)

I attended a local referee’s meeting recently, where one of the topics was (of course) Offside. Ignoring the fact that many of the speakers like to call it “Offsides,” one specific scenario did spark a huge debate among the 100+ refs in attendance that night.

The speaker in charge of going through the slide show presentation with us showed us the scene. At the moment the ball is played, the Assistant Referee should take a “snapshot” of the players in his mind. In this snapshot, the defender was standing straight up, and the attacker in question was leaning forward and running towards goal, much like Dimitar Berbatov in the image you see above (NOTE: I Photoshopped the image to better reflect the scenario. I also moved Rooney forward so i could make the image larger!).

There were many in the room who said that if the attacker became involved in play, they would raise the flag for offside. The stated reason was that the attacker’s head and chest are behind the second last defender (we always ignore the arms when determining offside position).

There were also many in the room who said that they would keep the flag down. Their reasons included the infraction being considered doubtful because it is so close, and that if there is a hint of doubt, they would tend to favor the attack rather than potentially raise the flag and end up being wrong.

The speaker, who I assume is an experienced ref, shocked us all by saying that he would keep the flag down because there has to be daylight between the defender and the attacker to make the offside call!

So, what do you think? Do you raise the flag for offside, or do you keep the flag down?

Regardless of your interpretation of offside position, it is of the utmost importance to stay perfectly in line with the second last defender at all times. Being one step behind or ahead can be the difference between being heralded as a fantastic official, or being the entire stadium’s worst enemy as you call back a perfectly legitimate goal!

Click below and tell us what you think.

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Please take the time to create a username, then introduce yourself in the Discussion Forum, where you can reflect and ask questions all season related to refereeing.

Thank you for visiting, and enjoy the site!

Join the forum discussion on this post

Please take the time to create a username, then introduce yourself in the Discussion Forum, where you can reflect and ask questions all season related to refereeing.

Thank you for visiting, and enjoy the site!

Join the forum discussion on this post

If this is your first time on the site, here are just a few of things you can do on RefPlanet.com:

• Discuss experiences, situations, and approaches to the game (or just introduce yourself) in the discussion forums.
• Create a blog (or journal) of your refereeing career (or read other referees’ blogs).
• Check out the resource database to see how to get started as a referee in your area in any sport.

The site is still new, as you can the tell by the lack of posts the forum. But every site has to start somewhere, so don’t be shy! When we share experiences, we all become better officials. Introduce yourself in the discussion forums and get started on RefPlanet.com today!

Source: Tonawanda News

I’ve spent 25 years — more than half my life — as an amateur hockey referee. It’s been a rewarding, but sometimes frustrating, experience. Last week I shared with you some stories from my time on the ice and explained some rule differences. Today, is part two and I’d like to begin with:

Six things all parents, coaches, spectators and players should know about USA Hockey referees:

1. We don’t write the rules, we only enforce them. Like you, many of us don’t like USA Hockey’s automatic offside rule, which requires an immediate whistle as soon as the puck crosses the blue line, if a player if offside. (In the NHL, players can “tag up” and play continues as long as no one on the offside team touches the puck.)

2. Some of our referees are still in high school. They are learning the game from a different perspective. Cut them some slack. You wouldn’t want ME to yell at YOUR 14-year-old like that, would you?

3. Yes, the prescription on my glasses is current.

4. Rules are different between USA Hockey, the NHL, NCAA and Canada. We’re enforcing the rules of USA Hockey. That’s not the rule in the NHL? Your 10-year-old isn’t in the NHL. Speaking of rules, USA Hockey updates/tweaks its rule book every two years. It evolves with the game.

5. We’re not out to “get” your team. Amazing as it seems, we don’t care who wins; we just want to call as fair a game as we can and get all participants off the ice in one piece.

6. Support the referee’s call; don’t scream bloody murder if a call is botched. Young players hear everything their parents and coaches say, and they are often wrong because they don’t know the nuances in the rules. If the adults are screaming, the kids get hyper. I’ve seen a lot of players play better after the loud-mouthed coach or parent has been ejected from the building.

That being said, there are some things I’ve seen as a referee that have made me laugh out loud.

Just a few weeks ago, I refereed a Pee Wee game (typically sixth and seventh graders) between Cazenovia Park and South Buffalo. Many of the participants were classmates. A player from South Buffalo scored three goals — a hat trick – and parents sent their hats to the ice. A player from Caz Park scooped up some hats and handed them to me. “Here, throw them in the garbage,” he said with an impish grin.

Several years ago at a tournament, a Canadian team’s coach questioned a ruling, and I explained the USA Hockey rule. Expressing his frustration with the cultural clash, he started to mock the explanation. “Well, maybe we don’t like the 55-yard line,” I retorted, referring to the Canadian Football League field.

A few minutes later, I skated by the bench and heard him say, “What’s wrong with three downs?”

I’ve also seen some truly ugly things at hockey games, too. Things that make you shake your head in disbelief. Things that make you want to turn away in disgust.

But enough about the unruly parents.

Earlier this season a midget-aged (17 and under) player from Amherst skated full-tilt into a goalie from Rochester, igniting an all-out brawl, similar to last Friday’s Islanders-Penguins NHL game. My partner and I handed out 18 game misconducts. A couple of players received four game misconducts each.

About 10 years ago, in another midget level game, a player collided with a goaltender despite his best efforts to avoid the collision. Both tumbled to the ice. One of the netminder’s defensemen proceeded to jump on the player, grabbed him by the back of the helmet and drove his head face-first into the ice. Thankfully, the facemask protected the player from injury.

In that situation, the offending player was assessed a match penalty for attempt to injure. This requires the referees to write a report and send it to the area’s referee-in-chief. The player is suspended for 30 days, unless a hearing is held, which could result in a longer or shorter sentence. The referees involved in the incident typically must attend these hearings. Needless to say, we’re not fond of – but we do assess – match penalties.

Overall, serving as a referee has been very rewarding. I was honored to be the referee who dropped the ceremonial puck before the first varsity girls hockey game in the history of Nichols School. I have officiated state playoff games. I’ve officiated multiple-overtime games in local tournaments. They have all been memorable.

And I’ve occasionally been thanked by parents for calling a good game.

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Source: The Examiner

An MLS Referee and Freddie Ljungberg at Qwest Field in Seattle

Do referees use atmosphere / crowd excitement to maintain adrenaline like players do?
MLS Referee: Oh, yes. The adrenaline starts to build during warm-ups and peaks in the tunnel, right before you march out with the teams. There is a lot to do in the tunnel leading up to that, like quickly checking the players uniforms, shin guards, jewelry, etc., and talking a bit with the key players and maybe the coaches to get a feel for how their mind-set is that day, so we are rushing to get that done. And then when we are ready, and we pause for the music to start, the adrenaline really kicks in. Qwest field is amazing that way – the rhythmic clapping to bring the teams on is outstanding, and the noise seems to keep you going all the way through the 90th minute and beyond. The crowd energy carries you and you really don’t feel tired until you hit the locker room. That’s when your body starts asking what you did to it.

What makes your job harder, and why?

The main source of frustration is deception. When a player dives trying to get a call, that’s cheating the game. Unfortunately, some are very good at it and can make it look very good at the angle and distance the referee tends to see the play. So that’s where input from an AR or the 4th official can be very helpful. But that’s the main cause of frustration, and I know efforts are being made to stop such behavior league-wide. The other difficulty is simply the travel involved. Every match involves a three-day commitment – one day to fly there, one for the match and one day to fly home. Most of the referees hold full-time jobs and the time required to referee at this level as well means personal and family time suffers.

When will you overturn an AR call?
First of all, the AR position is much tougher to carry out than people think. Their movement, positioning, and most of their reactions are dictated by the players actions, so they are under a lot of pressure to constantly adjust their angle of view, speed up, stop, sprint, run, etc. And on top of that, they need to be looking several places at once. It’s not easy to do. In the MLS, we tend to be assigned as a full crew all season long, so we get to know each other very well, build up a great level of trust, and I very rarely find a need to overrule an AR’s call. They make their calls because they are in a better place to see them than the referee and can give us quality information. For offside, they are the only person on the planet that is looking at the play from the correct angle to make the decision. And so very often, the slow motion replay proves they were right when at first glance spectators cannot believe the call. So the answer is “not very often at all.”

What’s it like going through the MLS referee match review process?
It’s actually a good process, and it varies depending on whether the match inspector is at the stadium or not. If they are present, we have a de-brief immediately after the match. If they watched it on TV from another city, the match inspectors will call us the next day for a de-brief. We normally get a DVD of the match before we leave the stadium, and get a chance to watch it and second-guess our decisions from a different angle during the flight home. People may think that we get yelled at, but that’s not true. The focus is always on how to get the job done better and making our next match a successful one.

What is your opinion about using electronic means to help make calls?
There is no question that the game is becoming faster and faster, which makes our job more difficult. However, the electronic goal-line technology just isn’t there yet, and needs more work before it’s 100% effective. As for instant replay or some version of that, it’s very difficult to incorporate into the game because play flows back and forth and may go for several minutes without a pause. In the MLS, we use the RefTalk communication system and that’s a good tool during high-stress moments. It appears that the best way to go, so far, is not with more electronics but instead to add the goal-line assistants like they have experimented with in UEFA Champions League. But that’s all still being evaluated, so we don’t expect any major changes coming soon.

How does the Qwest Field playing surface compare to others you’ve reffed on in MLS?
The Qwest turf is not bad, actually. You don’t get the high bounces that previous generations of artificial turf seemed to create. Passes on the ground travel a little faster and farther than on grass, so there is an adjustment players need to make, especially when it’s slightly wet – the ball tends to skip a bit and slide along faster than when it’s dry. That’s why Seattle likes to wet it down before the match and at halftime; they have the speed on the flanks to benefit from such conditions. Also, most players also don’t like to slide tackle as much on turf because it creates more skin irritation, but that makes my job a bit easier.

How important is it to know player and coach tendencies when reffing a match?
Very important. So much of refereeing depends on getting a good angle on the plays that we try to get as much information on the teams, the players and the coaches as possible. This lets us identify where they like to attack, how they move the ball, and who we need to keep an eye on. This in turn affects where we position ourselves on the field. The referees share a lot of tactical information among our peers, especially the latest tendencies seen in recent matches, as we prepare for the next match. We probably spend 10 hours reading about and studying videos of the teams we will see on our next match.

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The Bulgarian Football Union made the decision to ban the referees

While we all know the importance of informing your assignors if you plan on officiating out of state (or in this case, out of continent), this decision might be a little over the top!

Source: Eurosport/Yahoo

The Bulgarian Football Union’s refereeing commission has banned six officials for an unspecified period for breaching the BFU’s ethics code.

Luchezar Yonov, Petar Tarulov, Emil Mitev, Penyo Tashev, Ruslan Minchev and Veselin Rashkov were all banned after they officiated at international matches in South America last year without informing the national body.

“The refereeing commission made a unanimous decision to remove them from the referees’ list,” the BFU said.

Referee suspensions are not uncommon in Bulgaria while in recent years officials have complained there is widespread pressure on them to manipulate the outcome of games.

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Think you have what it takes to be a judge?

Well, the point of this website is to help you get started as an official in any sport, right?

So here is the information I’ve found about becoming a Gymnastics Judge. It’s compiled from a few different sources. All of these sources can be found in the RefPlanet Resource Database (link takes you directly to the Gymnastics Section).

There are several Ratings for Judges: 5/6 (Compulsory), and ratings 7-10 which are optional (but higher in stature). One can earn a rating as a gymnastics official through a series of tests, both Written and Practical, administered under the auspices of the USA Gymnastics Judging Accreditation Program.

Contact your NAWGJ (National Association of Women’s Gymnastics Judges) State Judging Director for information about upcoming clinics, exams dates, etc. It is very helpful to attend a judges’ training clinic prior to taking judging tests. Contact information for 12 of the state directors can be found in the Resource Database (so far!).

In order to officiate women’s gymnastics under USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic rules, judges must have knowledge of the rules and regulations included in the following publications (and addendums):

• USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic Compulsory Handbook
• USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic Code of Points
• USA Gymnastics Women’s Rules and Policies
• Gymnastics Technique Magazine, which includes minutes from the USA Gymnastics Women’s Technical and Junior Olympic Program Committees.

All technical materials may be ordered from the USA Gymnastics on-line store at http://usagym.sportgraphics.biz/ or by calling 1-800-345-4719.

In order to officiate International or U.S. Elite competitions, judges must have knowledge of the rules and regulations included in the following publications:

• FIG Code of Points
• FIG updates published by the FIG Technical Committee
• Current FIG Technical Regulations (for International Competition)

Ratings Levels Overview and Requirements

Compulsory Level (5/6)
Minimum Age: 16
Written Exam Score: 70%

Optional Level (7/8)
Minimum Age: 16
Written Exam Score: 70%
Practical Exam (Video) Score: 70%

Optional Level 9
Minimum Age: 18
Written Exam Score: 76%
Practical Exam (Video) Score: 75%
Must hold a Level 7/8 rating for at least 12 months
Must take 12 hours of CPE (Continuing Professional Education), with a minumum of 6 clinic hours

Optional Level 10
Minimum Age: 20
Written Exam Score: 80%
Practical Exam (Video) Score: 80%
Must hold a Level 9 rating for at least 12 months
Must take 16 hours of CPE (Continuing Professional Education), with a minumum of 8 clinic hours

Brevet and National Judges
By invitation only

Sian Massey, right, entering the pitch with Referee Howard Webb

Source: The Telegraph

Rival managers Ian Holloway and Gerard Houllier applauded assistant referee Sian Massey for her performance at Bloomfield Road on Saturday.

Massey returned to the Premier League for the first time since she was the subject of sexist remarks surrounding Liverpool’s win at Wolves last month. Those comments led to Andy Gray and Richards Keys losing their jobs at Sky Sports in the wake of the scandal.

Massey ran the line during the 1-1 draw between Blackpool and Aston Villa with Howard Webb the referee. Asked if she did all right, Blackpool boss Holloway said: “Absolutely.”

Villa’s Houllier added: “She took the right decisions. I was confident in her. She is good at what she is doing.”

However, Holloway was angered by supporters who taunted Massey. He said : “I didn’t like some of the shouts. Is that funny? ‘There is only one Andy Gray’.

“That’s rude, you have got to forget about all of that and get on with things, haven’t we. I think we should let things lie in the past.”

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Middle School basketball players sporting dangerous scrunchies

While I understand that, as a referee, safety should always be a major concern (especially in youth competitions), I don’t really see what is so “unsafe” about a headscarf. And when I see the “safe” head attire of an NBA player like Chris Andersen, I wonder if a headscarf is all that bad!

By the way, in Soccer’s Laws of the Game, religious attire is specifically allowed, as long as it does not pose a danger to any player.

Source: NBC Washington

A seventh grade student was held out for a portion of a girls’ basketball league game because she was wearing a headscarf.

After a discussion, the young woman was allowed to reenter the second half of a Mid-Maryland Girls Jr. Basketball Association game on Saturday.

The teenager, whose name league officials would not disclose, was playing for the Smithsburg team in Mount Airy. Teams in the league are not directly affiliated with public schools, but the rosters are made based on middle school sending districts.

The young woman was wearing a Muslim headscarf called a hijab, the Frederick News-Post reported.

Before the game began, a referee ruled that the headscarf presented a potential injury risk and barred the girl from entering the game. The parents of the young woman contacted a league official, Jim Shannon, about the decision.

“It’s a safety issue,” Shannon said, who makes the league’s schedule and acts as a liaison with the referees. “The league plays the high school rules, and the referee just quoted the rules.”

Shannon said that he called the referee during halftime and asked for an exemption to be made for the young player. Shannon said that the girl had played other games earlier in the season wearing the headscarf without incident, but this was the first game the team had played where Carroll County officials were officiating the game.

“These aren’t high school kids, they aren’t reaching up and dunking, and kids aren’t trying to pull them down,” Shannon said. When the girl’s parents signed off on the potential safety risk of playing with the hijab, the referee allowed her to play in the second half.

“Nobody wants to step into the discrimination trap,” Shannon said, “and that is truly not the issue.”

The league was writing an exemption into their bylaws to address situations like this going forward, and were planning on spreading the word through their website.

Another adult who was not the girl’s parent had an angry confrontation with the referee after the game. The Girls Jr. Basketball Association asked that any parents who have problems with officiating direct their complaints to the league, not the refs.

Institutions around the region have made extra efforts to accommodate religious beliefs in athletic venues. Last fall, George Washington University instituted a special swim session for Muslim women, when a drape would be hung to cover a glass door to the pool.

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