Members Blogs

Referees in the media will be published at the beginning of the week on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “Only Stindl had paid attention to it and counted correctly. He mentioned the mistake to his coach Mirko Slomka and the club reported it to the DFL (German Footbal League, jth) and they observed the failure too. Consequence: The midfield player is missing the match on Tuesday against Greuther Fürth.” It’s not a quote by a referee, but a translation from German newspaper Bild. Referee Christian Dingert has shown Lars Stindl form Hannover’96 a yellow card during the match against Frankfurt, but it was not shown in the Bundesliga statistics nor on the referee...

Builders of the RefereePro smartphone app are satisfied with use of it during the first official match. An interview from the Dutch Referee Blog with Jaime Herrera, a former Fifa referee from Mexico who helped developing the digital referee signal system. Read also the previous blog “Referee 2.0 uses smarphone app for goals and cards” about the referee smartphone app RefereePro on this blog. It includes a video about how it works. Referee Miguel Pensamiento gives a yellow card with his smartphone. How did the referee prepare for the match? Jaime Herrera: “We have been designing and working on the development of Referee Pro since a year ago and I, as a former FIFA referee, know how to use it since I helped to build it and I was...

The blog took a few weeks off after a busy few weekends saw some games which came under the scrutiny of the County FA. I was back in action with a Sunday League game after the original plan of assessing a promotion candidate fell by the wayside when he was rostered to work this weekend. The original referee for the game I did, had closed the weekend and the appointments secretary asked me to look after it. The only problem was that he had already made arrangements for another referee to cover it. I offered to go home but the other referee insisted I stay and within 15 minutes I needed a substitute as my calf gave way after yet another trudge through a muddy patch (the 14, 472nd this season). I managed to keep going until the end of...

Some players kick and shout at referees. Not Azizbek Haydarov from Uzbekistan. He’s jumping on the referee out of sheer joy to celebrate with him the 0-1 victory over Iran. But referee Ali Al-Badwawi from the United Arab Emirates wants not to do with it after he blew the final whistle in the World Cup 2014 qualification match between Iran and Uzbekistan. Al-Badwawi firmly dismisses Haydarov and let him sheer somewhere else. The post Al-Badwawi dismisses player who cheers with him appeared first on Dutch Referee Blog. Continue reading...

Referees in the media will be published at the beginning of the week on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “They cannot have contact with members of the public, because you don’t know what can be exchanged.” Local organising committee CEO Mvuso Mbebe about the referees who will officiate at the African Nations Cup 2013 in Januaray and February. “We will not assign referees next weekend for games in the D-League in Darmstadt. We have a duty of care for our referees and can in all honesty not tolerate that they put their health at risk in order to allow others to exercise their hobbies.” Local county referee chief Sebastian Schaab in Darmstadt about the referee strike...

Referees can leave their pencil and notebook at home. All they need is a smartphone. That seems like something for future referees, but according to The Next Web a Mexican referee has officiated a match with Referee Pro, “a smartphone app that will see the first ever football match kick off today with a professional match official using his mobile phone to record events, as well as dishing out yellow and red cards”. The referee appointed for last Thursday’s match between América and Tecos was Miguel Pensamiento. The use of a the digital notebook in an official match is the ultimate test for producer Siine. They wrote on their website that “this will road-test the new tool in a live environment. Referee decisions will even be directly...

Errol Sweeney is back in his own Ireland, but has been a football referee in South Africa. He actually was named the best referee of South Africa twice. Once by his colleagues, the second time by sports journalists. Errol Sweeney in action during a match in South Africa. Photo provided by referee. Name: Errol Sweeney Born: 1947 Country: Ireland Career: FAI Intermediate, Cup final – 1974/1975; first cup final in South Africa was in 1986 as assistant referee. In 1986 he was fourth official and he got the first cup final as referee in 1988. In 1991 he also officiated both semi cup finals, which is unique in South Africa. What do you do now for a living? Errol Sweeney: “I’m a psychologist working in Wilson’s Hospital School in Ireland...

Referees in the media will be published at the beginning of the week on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “Behind our mistakes, there is nothing: it is a mistake and then we turn the page. The referee and our association are like a kite: the more headwind there is, the better and higher we fly.” Marcello Nicchi after the moment he was chosen as the president of the Italian referees. Australian A-League referee Shaun Evans. Photo: Refsworld / Anita Milas This would have been the hardest decision of my life so far! The thought of giving up 4 years as an assistant referee on the A-league panel to pursue a potential career as a referee on the A-league was a massive...

Italian news website MNews reports that a referee has been kicked on his head. It’s not a pitch invasion like I posted last week, but this seems a serious violent offence against the referee. Check out the video below. Sad to see this referee hobbling slowly of the pitch after “being kicked on the head”, according to Italian news website Mnews. The teams Melito di Porto Salvo and Santo Stefano d’Aspromonte you were playing the game. The score was 5-3 at the moment of the incident. My Italian is not good (status: can understand texts only with Google Translate), so maybe my Italian followers could tell what the Italian FA does after such incidents when a referee is kicked on his head. The post Italian referee kicked on his head appeared...

In a game we used to play as kids, we'd say which superpower we wanted and there was always some little lad who had seen 1950'2 sci-fi classic, The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, who wanted to be able to see through people's clothes, etc. For me, a spectacle wearer from age 5 to 37 when laser treatment corrected my vision, just being able to see would have been good! In two situations today, I felt I used a little x-ray vision but on both occasions I still had to make a judgement call. In the first situation I had two players who had already been cautioned, challenging for the ball near the touchline. I saw the one without the ball, race towards his opponent but at the split second of contact I had two other players cross my line of sight...

Today's two games saw me travel almost all the way to Lancashire and then back to the heart of West Yorkshire for a County Sunday Trophy game then an U16 fixture. I had some incidents which means there's enough for a double blog today. In the first game I had two incidents where player equipment caused an issue for me and for the players involved. I have, since my earliest assessments for promotion, always been pretty keen on checking player equipment. I still have the stud which had snapped off a players boot in the warm-up and he handed to me when I made him change his footwear. As I always say to the player involved who has a stud missing, I wouldn't let you drive a car with a wheel missing, so why should I let you play in a game...

“The assistant referees discussed some very difficult clips on offside and I came away thinking I’m glad I’m not an assistant referee!!” Says Don Robertson, center referee at the Uefa u19 championship qualifiers. I in action as assistant referee during last season’s cup final between BVCB and Nieuwenhoorn u23. Photo by Willem Fakkel / EVSportfoto.nl Personally, I’m not often an assistant referee. In The Netherlands only professial matches and games in highest amateur leagues are with neutral assistants. All other refs have to do it with club assistants, provided by the home and away team. The Dutch FA only appoints trio’s at promotion/relegation matches or cup finals. And that’s how I became an assistant referee for two matches. Before...

Luckily I’m not a referee in Tajikistan. Found the video below via Footballnus and he says he has seen more matches like this one. A brawl with players versus eachother and the referee ends in a pitch invasion. Some info about the match according to the person who uploaded the video: Match: Istaravshan FK vs. Energetik Dushanbe League: Tajikistan Premier League Venue: Istaravshan Stadion (Capacity: 20,000) Date: 08/11/2012 And how did it end? “The fight between football players and subsequent pitch invasion after the Energetik goalkeeper attempted to kick the referee after conceding a goal for which he thought shouldn’t have stood (sic). After the players fled the pitch, the pitch was cleared by police and the Istaravshan players came...

I’m not familiar with Latvian football, but according to the video below they are very creative in their tactics. It’s an u17 match between Liepajas Metalurgs (blue shirts) and JDFS Alberts (orange shirts). The blue team is already champion in the league, but they want to try something new. This is their comment posted under the video: “Take it easy, they already were champions, so in the last minutes they tried something they wanted to do all year, but there weren’t chance to do that.” The players of Liepjas Metalurgs get a free kick and surround the ball with the almost the whole team. After the referee signal, they take the kick and walk slowly forward, not giving any space to the opponents. The Alberts players try to sneak in the...

Referees in the media will be published at the beginning of the week on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “Based on the submitted documents, the referee committee shall review the personal qualifications of referees for crimes committed like tax ofences, due to fraud in personal dealings and will aslo look at the current economic situation of the referee.” Translation from a document released by the German FA and published by Die Welt. German referees are being reviewed thoroughly after incidents like the one with Robert Hoyzer a few years back. Logo Scottish FA “Both technical areas were well behaved (although I don’t speak Romanian or Armenian so they could have...

What is your favourite referee whistle? How do you pick your whistles? And what makes a whistle good? I like whistles with a sound other referees don’t have. The Fox 40 Pearl has that in The Netherlands. That reminds of a situation during last season. I officiated with a blue Pearl version of the Fox 40 – matching with my blue referee kit ofcourse. Usually people ask me afterwards something about a situation or just say thanks for refereeing. But a man stepped forward and began talking about that unique sound of the whistle. Yeah, it was a colleague who was off duty that weekend. I’m wondering if he found one, because (most of) the Dutch sport shops only sell the Fox 40 classic. But it kept me thinking: how do referees pick their...

Referee Howard Webb stresses that reaching the top is not just smooth progress for future Premier League referees. “Ups and downs are all part of the journey, and that ‘bouncing back’ from disappointments, or mistakes, is really important, as long as we learn from them.” That says Howard Webb in an interview with Dutch Referee Blog. The top referee from England is speaking on ‘Belgian Referee Day’ for a group of young referees on Thursday evening in Brussels. Howard Webb on FA tv screenshot. Howard Webb: “I’m looking forward to visiting Brussels, and to meeting up with some really good friends from the world of Belgian refereeing. I’m also looking forward to having the opportunity to speak with some young Belgian referees and sharing...

NB: This is an updated version from the previously posted video with the bluff penalty. There’s a USSF Referee Advice which gives more information about how to handle in the following situation. Penalty takers try to mislead the goalie very often, but not all tricks work out as they were meant. Have a look at this bluff penalty. Don’t know the league or competition, but that’s not important if I want to explain the rules of the game. The football Laws of the Game by Fifa state that ‘the player taking the kick must be properly identified’. For the viewer’s it’s at least not clear who’s going to take the kick. At first, I quoted the Laws of the Game that this is a case where ‘a teammate infringes the football rules’. In that case: the...

Referees in the media will be published at the beginning of the week on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “It is quite beyond me why 90 minutes of conversations aren’t always recorded. Referees’ conversations should be available to fans who pay their wages, if anything, to be aware of what the referees themselves have to put up with. If the language is so bad, someone has to do something about improving it without sanitising the game. A point has been reached and in this generation you have got to do something about it.” That’s what David Davies, the former executive director of the Football Association, says to The Guardian. He reacts on the research that is done...

I completed my 12th Supply League Assessment of the current season yesterday and after the game, it was the referee seeking my confirmation of his action, rather than me seeking to clarify a situation. In essence what happened was that a player showed dissent by word as the game was ongoing. So as not to disadvantage his opponents who were in the attacking third and in possession of the ball, the referee allowed play to continue and at the next break in play, he called the player towards him with the obvious intention of cautioning him. As he reached for his notebook, the player clapped him and said something to the effect of "Well done ref". He therefore issued a caution for the original dissent and then issued a second caution for...