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To follow up on the other post about the last week, there's been some other things happening which I wanted to mention. One story as been unavoidable and that was the shocking news from The Netherlands where an Assistant Referee, Richard Nieuwenhuizen, was attacked by players after an U16 game. After the attack he collapsed and despite being treated in hospital, died the next day. What made this all the more tragic was that his son was playing in the game and may have witnessed the attack. All amateur football in The Netherlands has been suspended this week as a mark of respect and there is a campaign on Twitter to mark this weekend as #RespectforRichard weekend. On a lighter note, one of the oldest questions was answered as...

If a week can be a long time in politics it can be even longer in football during the winter months. Teams at and around my level of football have games postponed and the old saying that the devil finds work for idle hands springs to mind. For some this can mean tinkering with their team, others it means tinkering with the management and even for referees, the lack of games can result in them getting involved in discussions they should leave well alone. Fortunately for me it has been an extremely busy week with more in prospect. Last Saturday I travelled to Doncaster for a Supply League assessment and watched an exciting game between two teams at opposite ends of the league. The result went the way of the visitors who consolidated...

In tribute to slain Dutch referee Richard Nieuwenhuizen, referees around the world will change their avatars or profile photos to the logo of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB). The tribute will be timed to coincide with a silent march in Richard’s hometown of Almere on Sunday, 9 December 2012, at 17:00 local time (16:00 UTC; 11:00 AM EST in North America). Referees, players, coaches and supporters are encouraged to post their thoughts on this senseless tragedy during the tribute, followed by the hash tag #RESPECTforRichard. Webmasters are encouraged to post a graphic tribute to Richard at the same start time. A suggested graphic tribute is previewed below. We propose a tribute period of a minimum of 24 hours and maximum of 7...

Three teenagers face manslaughter charges because of the death of assistant referee Richard Nieuwenhuizen. The kids have to appear in court Thursday 6th of December for the first time. A judge will decide if the detention of the suspects will be extended. The prosecutor already announced will then officially be charged with manslaughter, assault and public violence for alleged involvement in an incident last weekend after the match between youth teams form Buitenboys and Nieuw Sloten. In the Dutch referee system it’s common that parents or club members officiate as a linesman on almost all amateur levels. Buitenboys linesman Nieuwenhuizen was flagging his son’s match and afterwards he was beaten up by three players from Nieuw Sloten...

The cold weather arrived in Europe. But how do we dress because of the low temperature and icy wind? I normaly try to write down the scores with my cold fingers. I tried gloves once many years ago. It helped a little against getting cold fingers, but writing down info about cards and goals wasn’t any easier. Last week I saw special ‘referee gloves’. They’re for sale for 24.95 euro at RefereeWorld. They look pretty normal compared to other gloves, so I’m still wondering what makes them ‘referee gloves’. The post Gloves designed for football referees appeared first on Dutch Referee Blog. Continue reading...

Japanese referees Yuichi Nishimura (men) and Sachiko Yamagishi (women) received the 2012 AFC Referee of the Year Award during the 2012 AFC Annual Awards. A happy Nishimura: “I think on the refereeing side there are no big differences between Europe and Asia. That’s because Asian referees have high standards. I think it’s only different on the football side.” Nishimura als praises his colleague Ravshan Irmatov from Uzbekistan. “Mr. Ravshan is a fantastic referee.” Have a look at the interview on the AFC YouTube Channel. If you understand Japanese, you might be interested in the interview with the female winner Sachiko Yamagishi. The post Asian referees of 2012: Nishimura and Yamagishi appeared first on Dutch Referee Blog. Continue...

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...