A&H

What’s your Ref routine?

Ben448844 said:
Whilst I agree that as the referee you should always do the pitch inspection and, having gone through the qualification process to become a ref last summer, the first thing we were told (and asked to do on the day) was to do a pitch inspection. However, not doing one does not make you liable for anything.
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I can respectfully beg to differ having sat on various referee committees on this subject....you CAN be held liable, as its YOU that have deemed the pitch as suitable...there are cases of private prosecutions being carried out, one I recall off hand was over a "hole" on the park which a player f course ended up with a serious injury over

When folk refer to the referee having a degree of responsibilty for the safety and protection of the players, such things like, is the park playable, fall under this notion.
 
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The Referee Store
GraemeS said:
It's a known fact that sunglasses can alter your depth perception slightly - not to the extent that it's a problem when driving, but if you're trying to distinguish if a ball hit a hand or which boot touched the ball last, I think it might make a difference. Hats on the other hand should be permitted IMO, I've had games on the line where my most sore muscle at the end of the match is in my right arm that I have to hold up as a sun visor for 90 minutes!
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They can affect driving, in fact it is illegal to drive in the UK with filter category 4 sunglasses on as they only allow between 3% and 7% of light through.
 
Ciley Myrus said:
I can respectfully beg to differ having sat on various referee committees on this subject....you CAN be held liable, as its YOU that have deemed the pitch as suitable...there are cases of private prosecutions being carried out, one I recall off hand was over a "hole" on the park which a player f course ended up with a serious injury over

When folk refer to the referee having a degree of responsibilty for the safety and protection of the players, such things like, is the park playable, fall under this notion.
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I will politely refer you to page 71 that says:

7. Liability of Match Officials
A referee or other match official is not held liable for:
• any kind of injury suffered by a player, official or spectator
• any damage to property of any kind
• any other loss suffered by any individual, club, company, association or other
body, which is due or which may be due to any decision taken under the
terms of the Laws of the Game or in respect of the normal procedures
required to hold, play and control a match.
Such decisions may include a decision:
• that the condition of the field of play or its surrounds or that the weather
conditions are such as to allow or not to allow a match to take place
• to abandon a match for whatever reason
• as to the suitability of the field equipment and ball used during a match
• to stop or not to stop a match due to spectator interference or any problem
in spectator areas
• to stop or not to stop play to allow an injured player to be removed from the
field of play for treatment
• to require an injured player to be removed from the field of play for
treatment
• to allow or not to allow a player to wear certain clothing or equipment
• where the referee has the authority, to allow or not to allow any persons
(including team or stadium officials, security officers, photographers or
other media representatives) to be present in the vicinity of the field of play
• any other decision taken in accordance with the Laws of the Game or in
conformity with their duties under the terms of FIFA, confederation, national
football association or competition rules or regulations under which the
match is played


Therefore, if you have found a referee liable on any committee, I respectfully tell you that you have made a mistake.
 
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Most leagues in England state in the rules that the referee is paid after. Standard code of rules 13(E) states the below and leagues can choose what they want to do, but in my experience they usually delete before.

The Home Club shall pay the Officials their fees and/or expenses before/immediately after the match.

If the rules say after I would strongly advise against routinely asking for the fee before. There may be occasions when you need to disappear off straight after the full time whistle, but asking for the fee before kick off can make it look as though you are only in it for the money and appear unprofessional. Less of a problem these days, but some clubs still collect "match subs" from players after the game, so they might not have the money to pay you before. If you asking means that you disrupt their warm up / preparation by making them scrape around for cash you can expect your club mark to take a hit before you've even blown a whistle. Also, if it gets nicked from pitch side before the game they still have to pay you, whereas if they paid you before the game that becomes your problem.

At senior levels it is always after the game, and the rules normally state this must be in the changing room. Doesn't look very professional if the officials are handed a brown envelope in the bar after … :)

Doing a pitch and player equipment inspection is a must, it doesn't matter who has checked it or them before. Referees are only protected from liability if they have carried out their responsibilities correctly. If someone sues you because they broke their leg because of a hole in the pitch it is pointless you pulling out a copy of the LOTG in court as that isn't a legal document and has no grounding in a court of law. Whereas if you did a check you would probably be fine as no court could expect a referee to inspect every single centimetre of the pitch.
 
JamesL said:
I will politely refer you to page 71 that says:

7. Liability of Match Officials
A referee or other match official is not held liable for:
• any kind of injury suffered by a player, official or spectator
• any damage to property of any kind
• any other loss suffered by any individual, club, company, association or other
body, which is due or which may be due to any decision taken under the
terms of the Laws of the Game or in respect of the normal procedures
required to hold, play and control a match.
Such decisions may include a decision:
• that the condition of the field of play or its surrounds or that the weather
conditions are such as to allow or not to allow a match to take place
• to abandon a match for whatever reason
• as to the suitability of the field equipment and ball used during a match
• to stop or not to stop a match due to spectator interference or any problem
in spectator areas
• to stop or not to stop play to allow an injured player to be removed from the
field of play for treatment
• to require an injured player to be removed from the field of play for
treatment
• to allow or not to allow a player to wear certain clothing or equipment
• where the referee has the authority, to allow or not to allow any persons
(including team or stadium officials, security officers, photographers or
other media representatives) to be present in the vicinity of the field of play
• any other decision taken in accordance with the Laws of the Game or in
conformity with their duties under the terms of FIFA, confederation, national
football association or competition rules or regulations under which the
match is played


Therefore, if you have found a referee liable on any committee, I respectfully tell you that you have made a mistake.
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LOTG isn't a legal document though. That would be a like a company putting in their handbook that an employee wouldn't be liable if they accidentally committed a GDPR breach. It wouldn't stand up in court and they would still be liable.
 
The LOTG refer to referees liability (or lack off), but the LOTG should not be considered legally concrete. The reality is that there are very few if any solicitors willing to take on such claims of liability against a referee. There are a couple of famous cases in rugby (which I wrote about several years ago whilst doing an OU degree) where liability has been sought against the referee for failure of a 'duty of care' during march incidents. In short, at the time it was decided that during open play a referees ability to maintain a duty of care is impossible as he has no effect on what's happening, however, in the scrum the referee does have such liability. This took 5 years to establish and a second appeal was still being considered, another reason you won't get sued!

But to trim it down to basics, how would anyone prove tort of negligence against a referee? If someone tripped in a hole on the pitch, is it reasonable to expect the referee to have spotted that in the pitch inspection and what action should he take? Consider proof and how you could proof that that refs decisions regarding a frozen pitch was negligent or he failed in his duty of care? The referee doesn't own the pitch and isn't responsible for its maintenance or condition, therefore how could he be sued for pitch conditions etc? Also, a referee may be odd the opinion that that pitch is safe to play and an individual who subsequently got injured didn't, why did he play then? If you know something isn't safe and you decide to do it anyway then who's negligent?

We could go on forever but proving a refs liability over an arbitory pitch inspection is incredibly unlikely, although not totally impossible of course.

I can't stress enough how important I believe a pitch inspection is and I've never failed to do one, but it's not because I'm worried about liability and you shouldn't be either. It's one of the issues that prevents volunteers from refereeing and there's enough of them as it is.
 
RustyRef said:
LOTG isn't a legal document though. That would be a like a company putting in their handbook that an employee wouldn't be liable if they accidentally committed a GDPR breach. It wouldn't stand up in court and they would still be liable.
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Correct. The law is the law, I am aware of that. And maybe in a court of law matters might be different with respect of liability..

My point though is that a committee, responsible for footballing matters, governing football, are not the law, and have no reasonable basis to levy any punishments upon a referee as quite simply anything beyond the lotg or matters pertaining to lotg is outside of their jurisdiction.
 
From a practical perspective. Imagine a referee in a local park league was successfully sued. It would be all over the media. I wonder what that would do to the current crop of referees and any potential new ones? It would cripple refereeing and therefore amateur football. I for one would pack in and take up something else. Who needs that risk or worry over a hobby!!
 
Ben448844 said:
From a practical perspective. Imagine a referee in a local park league was successfully sued. It would be all over the media. I wonder what that would do to the current crop of referees and any potential new ones? It would cripple refereeing and therefore amateur football. I for one would pack in and take up something else. Who needs that risk or worry over a hobby!!
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It has happened in rugby ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/rugby-case-changes-rules-of-game-1305736.html
 
Forget the legal stuff. Fact is that not doing a pitch inspection is contrary to the laws of the game, it can also cause you any number of match incident issues or match control challenges. Being a referee can be challenging enough without adding additional avoidable other factors in for the sake of not getting there a few minutes earlier to walk the pitch
 
JamesL said:
I will politely refer you to page 71 that says:

7. Liability of Match Officials
A referee or other match official is not held liable for:
• any kind of injury suffered by a player, official or spectator
• any damage to property of any kind
• any other loss suffered by any individual, club, company, association or other
body, which is due or which may be due to any decision taken under the
terms of the Laws of the Game or in respect of the normal procedures
required to hold, play and control a match.
Such decisions may include a decision:
• that the condition of the field of play or its surrounds or that the weather
conditions are such as to allow or not to allow a match to take place
• to abandon a match for whatever reason
• as to the suitability of the field equipment and ball used during a match
• to stop or not to stop a match due to spectator interference or any problem
in spectator areas
• to stop or not to stop play to allow an injured player to be removed from the
field of play for treatment
• to require an injured player to be removed from the field of play for
treatment
• to allow or not to allow a player to wear certain clothing or equipment
• where the referee has the authority, to allow or not to allow any persons
(including team or stadium officials, security officers, photographers or
other media representatives) to be present in the vicinity of the field of play
• any other decision taken in accordance with the Laws of the Game or in
conformity with their duties under the terms of FIFA, confederation, national
football association or competition rules or regulations under which the
match is played


Therefore, if you have found a referee liable on any committee, I respectfully tell you that you have made a mistake.
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the referee(s) were found not liable.
 
I don't recall the LOTG mandating a pitch inspection. However, there are many very sound reasons for doing so. I have a checklist in the back of my notebook to prevent me reaching KO with that niggling feeling i've missed something, like tucking my shirt in, or tucking my shirt in!
@JoeMaloney5 , if you build a house without considering the foundations, don't be surprised when it falls doon (especially if you're wearing yellow boots or have your shirt untucked)
 
JamesL said:
And maybe in a court of law matters might be different with respect of liability..
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If I recall correctly, and just theorising a little here, but they would consider the LOTG the same way as the do with say, codes of practices and such in companies or the police force etc. If you do end up in court, and you bring out the LOTG and show you that followed the general requirements within for inspection of the pitch, equipment and whatnot, then they would be more than likely to come down on your side, provided you haven't done something out of the ordinary to lose control of the match - such as the rugby referee with the excessive amount of collapsed scrums.

But this would also mean if you didn't follow the LOTG requirements for inspection, you've more than likely lost the case before you've even got there.

So, in any case probably the best thing to do is do the inspections and whatnot, not 'just' to cover your backside, but because it's good form. Still, I wouldn't anticipate ending up in court, it would need to be an exceptional case to get there I think.
 
Can I wear orange boots with my orange shirt? I may have been wrong about being liable but when I did my course it was drummed into me that if a pitch needed to be checked. I will always do a check but I might miss a rabbit scrape and a player might break an ankle because of this but because I have checked I am covered, although that is an extreme example and most rabbit scrapes and holes are obvious and most away teams are very vocal about pointing out pitch defects.
 
RobOda said:
If I recall correctly, and just theorising a little here, but they would consider the LOTG the same way as the do with say, codes of practices and such in companies or the police force etc. If you do end up in court, and you bring out the LOTG and show you that followed the general requirements within for inspection of the pitch, equipment and whatnot, then they would be more than likely to come down on your side, provided you haven't done something out of the ordinary to lose control of the match - such as the rugby referee with the excessive amount of collapsed scrums.

But this would also mean if you didn't follow the LOTG requirements for inspection, you've more than likely lost the case before you've even got there.

So, in any case probably the best thing to do is do the inspections and whatnot, not 'just' to cover your backside, but because it's good form. Still, I wouldn't anticipate ending up in court, it would need to be an exceptional case to get there I think.
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Just to clarify I am not advocating not doing an inspection ;)
 
JamesL said:
I will politely refer you to page 71 that says:

7. Liability of Match Officials
A referee or other match official is not held liable for:
• any kind of injury suffered by a player, official or spectator
• any damage to property of any kind
• any other loss suffered by any individual, club, company, association or other
body, which is due or which may be due to any decision taken under the
terms of the Laws of the Game or in respect of the normal procedures
required to hold, play and control a match.
Such decisions may include a decision:
• that the condition of the field of play or its surrounds or that the weather
conditions are such as to allow or not to allow a match to take place
• to abandon a match for whatever reason
• as to the suitability of the field equipment and ball used during a match
• to stop or not to stop a match due to spectator interference or any problem
in spectator areas
• to stop or not to stop play to allow an injured player to be removed from the
field of play for treatment
• to require an injured player to be removed from the field of play for
treatment
• to allow or not to allow a player to wear certain clothing or equipment
• where the referee has the authority, to allow or not to allow any persons
(including team or stadium officials, security officers, photographers or
other media representatives) to be present in the vicinity of the field of play
• any other decision taken in accordance with the Laws of the Game or in
conformity with their duties under the terms of FIFA, confederation, national
football association or competition rules or regulations under which the
match is played


Therefore, if you have found a referee liable on any committee, I respectfully tell you that you have made a mistake.
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of course am aware of those details in our book, as am sure has been pointed out though, our book is not a legal document
 
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