A&H

At what age group should qualified match officials begin being appointed?

george.g

george.g

Active Member
Level 5 Referee
Was reading a thread just then about U8s, and calling handballs, and the theory of a thread for this came up, so I made it.

Wondering what age you think qualified match officials should begin to be appointed.

I know some refs get £20 for U8 games, and will tank through 3-4 on a Saturday, never really even needing to move much, let alone referee the game. Would it be more beneficial to allow coaches to referee these, and give on the pitch coaching?

From experience, some U10 games are closely contested, and I can see the need for refs in some, but not all.

Younger matches are also a good point for new refs to build some confidence from, so a couple of reasons for and against I guess.

Just wondering any thoughts, not a criticism to anyone who officiates any age or level of football.
 
A&H International
ggroves.2 said:
Was reading a thread just then about U8s, and calling handballs, and the theory of a thread for this came up, so I made it.

Wondering what age you think qualified match officials should begin to be appointed.

I know some refs get £20 for U8 games, and will tank through 3-4 on a Saturday, never really even needing to move much, let alone referee the game. Would it be more beneficial to allow coaches to referee these, and give on the pitch coaching?

From experience, some U10 games are closely contested, and I can see the need for refs in some, but not all.

Younger matches are also a good point for new refs to build some confidence from, so a couple of reasons for and against I guess.

Just wondering any thoughts, not a criticism to anyone who officiates any age or level of football.
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An interesting point you make
Having two boys play from U8s onward. I've seen a lot of this mini footy
Some of the Div 1 games at any age can take a 'little bit' of refereeing, but it's not really football until u13s as that's the defining line in terms of 11-a-side

The answer might be u11 cos of offsides, but this is a new topic never discussed before so hats off for raising the subject
 
Big field u12s seems about right.

Small field 8v8 u12-13 is a grey area. Benefits from a qualified ref because of the parents!

Here, some u10-11 games have qualified refs but I think they can get by with ”game supervisors”.

I think it all depends on whether there is a ref shortage or not! We don’t have quite enough, so assessments are down and more parents have to ref at u8-9.

What really hurt was the pandy as we lost two years of 15-16 year old elite-ish players who would normally supervise kids matches as part of their development.
 
Big Cat said:
The answer might be u11 cos of offsides, but this is a new topic never discussed before so hats off for raising the subject
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I think that's a good point to be made. Whilst I'd hardly say the Fa Referees Course prepares you to call offsides on your own, I'd rather someone qualified call it than not.

I've never seen a U8/9 require any sort of reffing, but the odd U10.

I know my junior league which i use to pick up easy games has more refs on a Saturday looking to make an easy £20 than games, so appointments become very competitive.

santa sangria said:
Big field u12s seems about right.
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I'd say once they get to 9v9, and start using medium sized pitches, a good argument can be made.
 
We start at Under 12s on full-size fields. I think that's the level that it needs, I don't see any benefit in younger age groups.
 
I've always felt that 12 year olds and younger don't need an adult referee. They just need a responsible adult with a rudimentary knowledge of the LOTG and a sense of fair play.
Sure, young, newly qualified 14 year old referees need to cut their teeth on something so this age group is for them in my opinion. Nothing looks more ridiculous to me than an adult referee moving around a pitch upon which the players are barely past his/her waist height!!
Personally, I'd never even entertain the idea of refereeing any kids football below U14 age. Just not required. Only my opinion though of course ... 🙂
 
I referee U10s as a favour for a team on occasions. I get paid 25 quid.

In my county this is development football (no scorers or scores or leagues published and scores only taken by the league for league purposes)

Sadly, in my experience, it’s the coaches and parents that need the most refereeing/ managing. A lot of these games are refereed by newly qualified u18s.

I think u10 upwards does require someone who is competent but I don’t think that necessarily has to be someone who is qualified more than someone who can apply a bit of common sense and help the kids to learn the game. Sadly the majority of coaches at this level still feel it is all about the winning rather than the development of the child.
 
I mentioned this in another thread, but I’ll repeat it here. In the US, AYSO is the largest youth soccer league and is sanctioned by USSF to separately license and train referees. (At the ”intermediate” badge level, an AYSO REF can get a USSF license just by filing out a form.)

in AYSO, all referees are volunteer. So teams have to cajole parents (or siblings, or friends . . .) to get certified--which often includes folks with no soccer background. We start OS at 10U (7 v 7 with a build out line), and have three volunteer refs on the games. Of course, those games don’t really need a three official team, but it gets folks in the pipeline early when it isn‘t so stressful, and then we work to keep them around. By the time we get to the 16U and 19U games, we have the volunteers who got the bug and keep at it well after their kids stop playing just because they like it and want to help the kids be able to play.

And I wish I had a nickel for every time a parent who has kids playing in both AYSO and USSF club has asked me why they get better refs in AYSO than club. (Though the overlap grows as refs get more experienced—at least in areas with vibrant AYSO regions, an awful lot of the USSF and school refs got their start as AYSO volunteers.)
 
Redref34 said:
Has anyone ever had to show a card to a player that is 10 or under?
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Yup. My first ever red card was to a 10 year old. Punched another player in the face. 27 years ago and still remember it
 
I have only ever had two situations where I may have used cards.

One was two yellows in quick succession which I spoke to the player on the first offence rather than show the card and then on the second I asked his manager to take him off for the remainder of the game.

The second was a push from another player off the ball.. again I decided to talk to the player at length rather than show the card. I think with hindsight both were the correct action but this is why I think under 10s certainly does need someone who can effectively apply the laws rather than a random volunteer parent.
 
I've always wondered why ref's aren't allocated to the highest age groups first and filtered down. U18's are going to be a lot more physical and the opportunity for a tackle to cause harm at that age is much greater than U11's etc. Yet, even after stating I prefer to do the older age groups and higher leagues, I've been put on U12's, 13's etc when I know U18's have no allocation that week.
 
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