“Mature ref” returning back to the whistle

Evening, I’ve a question but first a little bit of context.
I first passed my referees course in 2001 a few years after leaving the Army (9 years service) and got thrown into open age, I refereed for one or two seasons and was fairly active in the local referees association. I’m now 49 years young
I stopped refereeing due to moving to a different county and also completely rupturing my Achilles’ tendon twice in the space of 4 months (the same one)
When my son expressed an interest in playing football, I then did my football coaching badges and still actively coach at u8 and u12. I am a long term development focussed coach as opposed to results and trophies coach.
I redid my referees course earlier this year as I found myself having to referee more and more matches and whilst I consider my prior experience in refereeing definitely holding me in good stead, refereeing like the game has changed a lot since 2001 or so.
I got asked to referee a match on Sunday (u14), which I agreed to as (I still need to pass my 6 matches as Im still a “trainee” referee so still consider myself as fairly inexperienced, despite prior refereeing experience)

the question (got there eventually) - whilst refereeing a parent on a number of times choose to display their disagreement in some of my throw in decisions, I gave a number of decisions that in my opinion and from my position nicked the foot of a team - I suspect that the parent didn’t see what I did and laughed sarcastically and loudly after 2 or 3 decisions.
The ball had one out of play and I asked the throw in taker to pause and walked up to the parent and offered him my cards and whistle and asked him if he wanted to referee the match, to which he didnt - I didn’t really hear from that parent for the rest of the match.

My question is - could asking the parent if he wanted to referee be considered confrontational or even potentially escalate the situation? I did explain that him showing dissent could spread to the other players on the pitch. As a coach, its a bug bear of mine when parents question or add pressure to referees and this may of been influential in how I handled the sitiuation.
I apologise for the war and peace, I’ve had a glass of wine but wanted to add context

I can see why you would do it, but personally I'd be cautious of doing it. What would you have done if the parent had said "Yeah, why not", taken your cards and strolled on the pitch?

My personal approach is to ignore the parents, unless it is a positive or humourous (for all sides) engagement.

If I have a parent that is questioning I tend to talk to the players in a loud voice so that the parents can hear. I get the message across, without the need to engage with off the pitch. If you need to deal with the parents, get the coach to do it.

If you do want to speak to a parent (I can empathise with the desire for a public rebuke!) perhaps just ask them if they would like to take the time to do the course? They can learn the laws, understand the challenges faced by referees and put all of his obvious skills to positive use. Much more effective than just shouting from the sidelines. However, for the rest of the game please can you stop the feedback or I will ask the coach to remove you.

If a parent is becoming an issue, the bench is your place to go to get them dealt with. Depending on your area, the youth league in question may have a “Respect” (lol) program. I wouldn’t be engaging with any parents.

Unfortunately you will have parent "experts" criticising you at games up to around Under-15 level . . . above that age parents tend not to stay for the game. This sort of low level abuse/expressing opinions is ignored by most referees as it has become the norm.
If you feel an individual has behaved in an unacceptable manner, as others have said you should approach the home club senior person (manager, coach, etc) and ask them to deal with the offender.
In my local area, there are 2 Respect stewards at every game, and the manager would involve them in warning and/or remove the offender.
Tell the manager which person/people you want dealt with, the reason, and what you would like done.
Even in a public park, you can ask for the nuisance(s) to go away from the f. o. p.
Don't let one idiot spoil your return to refereeing - keep up the good work!

Recommended practice is not to engage directly with "fans". The manager is responsible for their actions - get him to sort it and you're entitled to delay the game until the issues are sorted or even abandon if the manager is unwilling/unable to control his fans.

Also, I'd recommend against using the "do you want to ref the game?" line. I get that it's satisfying and often effective, but what do you do if he says "yeah, go on then"? You're the appointed ref and you're charging the club a match fee to be there - you can't therefore abandon that duty and let a random non-neutral take over purely by choice. You have other options for dealing with dissent and for fear of that 10% chance of having to carry out an embarrassing climb-down and the resulting complete loss of your match control, I'd use all other options first.

My limited interactions with parents tend to keep a degree of humour... e.g they complain about a throw, "you didn't complain about the one the other way back there, did you?"

I do think there's a degree of parents who just aquire verbal diarrhoea (like many "fans"), and pointing out the obvious in a jokey way nips it in the bud as they remember where they are... obviously will never be 100% effective.

I'd also advise against the "do you want the whistle" line...

Welcome back BoBeB!

As a one off it is probably fine, but I wouldn't recommend doing it on any kind of regular basis. Rather ask the home officials to have a word with him as others have suggested.

Some good advice here - I suspected that there were more effective ways of handling it hence the question.
I take onboard that it’s low level abuse, but I will add that as referees just “accept it” as the norm - it’s never going to get better and we will be loosing the younger referees or the loud mouth clubs will easily intimidate the referees and get decisions in their favour
There is no reason that some point football cannot be akin to rugby with regards to respect to the referee. Wishful thinking I know, but often a lake can be sometimes started with a throw of a stone into a small pond..

BoBeB said:

Some good advice here - I suspected that there were more effective ways of handling it hence the question.
I take onboard that it’s low level abuse, but I will add that as referees just “accept it” as the norm - it’s never going to get better and we will be loosing the younger referees or the loud mouth clubs will easily intimidate the referees and get decisions in their favour
There is no reason that some point football cannot be akin to rugby with regards to respect to the referee. Wishful thinking I know, but often a lake can be sometimes started with a throw of a stone into a small pond..

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You don't have to accept it, but get the club to deal with it rather than yourself. You compare it to rugby, but whilst I remember seeing Nigel Owens calling in all players for a "chat", he hasn't gone to speak to the spectators to ask them to behave.

I’ve just revisited this now and totally ignore the parents and spectators mostly and if it goes over the acceptable threshold, I get the home coach to deal with it (with the away coach support if it’s an away parent). I did notice when getting involved with them it would then turn into heated conversation that could escalate.

BoBeB said:

nt and offered him my cards and whistle and asked him if he wanted to referee the match, to which he didnt - I didn’t really hear from that parent for the rest of the match.

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Happened to me in one of my NPL games I was AR for (along the main stand). We had been informed prior to the game that there was an U16 I think?) academy game that had no referees, if we had anyone/anything spare to help out. Unfortunately we didn't and had to do our own game that we were appointed for.

Anyways, a home team fan kept complaining at some of my calls - mostly at me delaying the offside flag (to make sure the offending player actually interfered in play when there was more than one attacker), and after about 20 minutes of this, at a pause in play, I just turned around and said to him "Look mate, if you really want to referee, we have your Under 16s about to play next field over with no referees. I'll let them know at half time you're available."
His wife laughed, and I didn't hear a word from him for the rest of the game. Not sure if that's because he went to the other game though.

BoBeB said:

I’ve just revisited this now and totally ignore the parents and spectators mostly and if it goes over the acceptable threshold, I get the home coach to deal with it (with the away coach support if it’s an away parent). I did notice when getting involved with them it would then turn into heated conversation that could escalate.

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Probably a better approach to be honest... haha