5-4 promotion candidates
- Thread starter Cashel
- Start date
I guess it will depend when the restrictions are eased enough to a level that allows grass roots football to resume. Last season CFAs were told to submit nominations even though the season was curtailed, but the difference there is the season was much further progressed than it is now. This season some candidates may well have had the minimum three observations needed, but it could be argued it would be unfair to promote them as they have just got lucky and might not be as good as others that have only managed two to date.
There's also the question mark of what they do with existing level 4s (and all levels above them for that matter). Ordinarily space is made for new L4s by removing those that fall to meet the retention criteria. Can they do that this season though, given that some L4s might have only had 2 or 3 supply league middles and may not have even been observed yet? That would seem very harsh, so if they don't the only "vacancies" would be created by those choosing to step down from L4 and that might not be very many.
There's also the question mark of what they do with existing level 4s (and all levels above them for that matter). Ordinarily space is made for new L4s by removing those that fall to meet the retention criteria. Can they do that this season though, given that some L4s might have only had 2 or 3 supply league middles and may not have even been observed yet? That would seem very harsh, so if they don't the only "vacancies" would be created by those choosing to step down from L4 and that might not be very many.
Something else to consider also, Cornwall has been in Tier 1 and 2 since the last lockdown so there's been a fair whack of football played. We were put into Tier three on Boxing Day. Although football can still be played, the vast majority of Leagues have suspended their fixtures.
If we compare Cornwall (Tier 2) and the South East for example (Tier 4), one would imagine that the Cornwall based referees could have refereed alot more games, therefore giving them an unfair advantage for promotion. It wouldn't be fair of the FA to promote a level 5 from Cornwall over a Herts FA Level 5 simply because the Cornwall guy was able to get his games and observations under the belt. Hopefully that makes sense.
Hopefully a full lockdown will be announced in a few minutes and the R rate can decrease, vaccinations increase and we are able to recover and get the games in.
If we compare Cornwall (Tier 2) and the South East for example (Tier 4), one would imagine that the Cornwall based referees could have refereed alot more games, therefore giving them an unfair advantage for promotion. It wouldn't be fair of the FA to promote a level 5 from Cornwall over a Herts FA Level 5 simply because the Cornwall guy was able to get his games and observations under the belt. Hopefully that makes sense.
Hopefully a full lockdown will be announced in a few minutes and the R rate can decrease, vaccinations increase and we are able to recover and get the games in.
Justylove
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Welcome to the site Cash!
Everything is speculation right now. What we do know is that England is locked down until at least 15th Feb and most likely well into March as even if the vaccination goals are met in the coming weeks it’s likely to take another 3-4 weeks post Feb 15th for things to calm down.
It’s going to be difficult for leagues to complete the season, or even to get to a meaningful number of games before the end of the season, meaning that having a null and void season called is a massive possibility.
There’s two major problems if that happens (and I’m talking specifically to our county here):
1) A lot of referees got promoted from 5-4 last season, this was in expectation of the leagues restructuring. We went from a shortage of L4 referees and 5-4 candidates having to cover supply league middles in the previous seasons to a surplus of L4’s this year scrabbling around for games that are normally done by 5’s or below as they are not appointed.
2) Point 1 is exacerbated by the fact that on the marking league teams have played anywhere from 10-14 games. Most referees have done only a small number of games and had a handful of observations.
The major question for managing promotion and demotion to and from 4 and higher levels is how do you make it fair? Is it fair to demote a referee who has had only 1 observation and 4 or 5 middles? It’s even worse at L3 as the Contrib teams have played around 8 league games so far.
In a nutshell - too many L4 referees for the league structure this year (certainly in our neck of the woods) and no fair way of ranking referees based on the small number of games and observations completed, unless we see a whole load more football played, meaning that it’s going to be hard to promote and demote referees.
The only other routes to make more space in the ranks are either for the implementation of the delayed new league structures for 21-22 season (which is going to be tough with in effect the likelihood of 2 consecutive Null and Void seasons, which is going to make it a minefield) or hoping that more existing L4’s choose to go the specialist AR path - but it’s likely to be a really small number, I only know of 3 out of our pool who chose it this year and for one of them it was a straight choice between demotion back to L5 or specialist AR pathway.
I suspect that they’ll either Null and Void the season for referees, or they’ll do a continuation where games and observations from this season carry over and then there is a reckoning at the end of 21-22 season.