Members Blogs

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...

Former Swiss referee boss Urs Meier is shocked that four of twelve Swiss top referees will quit after this season. He warns the Football Association that there will be more refereeing problems in the future if the FA does not change it’s policy. And Switzerland is not the only country which has to worry about their refereeing future, says Urs Meier in an interview with by the Dutch Referee Blog and World of Football Refereeing. Last month Damien Carrel (30), Cyril Zimmermann (36) Daniel Wermelinger (41) and Ludovic Gremaud (32) announced their retirement as Swiss referee. They’ll stop after this season due to lack of respect and lack of financial support. Urs Meier, who was Swiss referee boss from 2007 untill 2011: “I was a bit shocked...

I'm a reasonably happy chappy bumbling through my late 40s rapidly advancing on becoming a grandad for the first time but occasionally I get knocked off my path and I find myself falling into a slight dip in my positive outlook. Over the last few weeks I have attended two games to assess the referee for promotion and both have been abandoned. Last week I picked up a District Cup backword, turned up at the ground only for the away team not to show. On Sunday I picked up another backword, this time for a Sunday League Trophy game with a place in the Quarter Final at stake, but the home team haven't paid some fines and have been suspended for a minimum of 7 days meaning the game has been postponed. So is it me or do I just have a...

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. “That decision was incorrect. The contact was minimal and Heskey probably played for the penalty. The referee wasn’t well positioned and it was a harsh decision.” New Australian referee boss Ben Wilson is making firm statements about referee Ben Williams and his assistants. They made three of four big calls wrong. When I was 15 my dad literally dragged me off a pitch after I swore at a ref. Lesson was learnt! Never tackled anyone either. — Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) oktober 17, 2012 There is so much happening in modern football and this course where video...

Referee Nestor Guillen showed 36 brawling players and staff a red card in a junior league match in Paraguay. In the match between Teniente Farina und Libertad Club players and reserves all stormed on the pitch after the referee gave to red cards, describes this newspaper. After the brawl the referee wrote on the match report he gave 36 red cards, which might be a world record. Hernan Martinez, president of the home club, Teniente Farina, says: “Many of the players that were on the field and on the substitutes’ bench, everyone went on to the field to try to control their team mates and even the players from the other team.” You can find more reactions in this news article about the 36 red cards by Reuters. I’ve added the video below...

Football players are stars in blaming the assistant and center referee for their own mistakes. This video below is a perfect example. In the Polish top league match between Zagłębie Lubin – Legia Warsaw a corner kick needs to be taken. However, the player doesn’t take a good look at the assistant referee and kicks him first, before touching the ball. Because he’s neutral, the ball is considered to be taken by referee Daniel Stefanski. He let the play continue. An opponent nearby sees it and captures the ball and walks away with it. The video below shows bad passes in the beginning followed by the stupid corner kick. Looks pretty odd. Which of you does know the official guideluines for assistant referee’s positioning at a corner kick...

The validity of the decision to leave the roof open at the stadium in Warsaw hosting the Poland vs. England World Cup Qualifier is one for discussion elsewhere. What couldn't be disputed was the action taken by the referee to help him decide whether the surface was playable after heavy rain left water standing in a number of places around the field. He used the same method used by referees across the world; he went out, in his boots and took a football with him. He tried to replicate the action of the ball during the game by rolling it along the ground, by throwing it in the air to see if it bounced. He threw it with forward spin, back spin and without spin. In the final inspection, he tried to kick the ball without much success. In...

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. “In Berlin, there’s luckily everything: big, small, fat, thin, black, white, ugly, pretty. Nevertheless, a midget is still attracting more attention.” Cem Yazirlioglu, with 1m38 the smallest referee in German leagues, who wants to climb up the German referee ranks. “It’s nice with all the countries represented and the different thinking and different attitudes, it’s really interesting. It’s not always easy to get people from all these different backgrounds thinking along the same lines, but Sonia (Denoncourt, jth) does the job very well.” Sports psychologist...

I spent last weekend assessing two promotion candidates for the County FA who were both aspiring to Level 4. Saturday's game went reasonably well but Sunday's was abandoned after 61 minutes when the away team had their 5th player sent off. Not something I've seen before, which was the theme of my last post on this blog and hopefully I'll not see again! Today's two games (both U15) threw up a few situations which made me take a breath before deciding what to do. The first was a goal kick that the home team goalkeeper decided to take across the face of his goal towards his left back. The ball wasn't rolling well so the full back and an attacker both ran inside the penalty area. They challenged for the ball and the left back trips the...

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 it’s not important 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’. Seeing the video it suggests someone else than the person who actually kicked the ball was the taker. So that means a violation of the procedures. The actual taker ‘infringes the Laws of the Game’. Also in the Laws of the Game about taking a penalty kick and a teammate infringing the rules: the referee allows the kick to be taken if the ball enters the goal, the kick is retaken if the ball does not enter...