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Young referee from India

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Soham

Soham

New Member
Level 3 Referee
Hi this is Soham from Kolkata, India. I'm a 3rd level referee in my state football federation and look to learn a lot more from my European counterparts as European refereeing is the pinnacle in my opinion. I officiate a lot of college games and district level games and I want to share my experiences here as well and learn more from all here. Regards.
 
The Ref Stop
Welcome! I am interested to know about the district games - what is the atmosphere, crowd, how well trained are the teams, do you have trained assistants etc.?
 
Hi @santa sangria. Here district level games get really heated because the teams at times get extremely violent. Coming to the atmosphere and crowd it's pretty negligible as there aren't much of a crowd so atmosphere is pretty quiet unless teams choose to become violent among themselves. Teams are trained decently enough but behaviour are at times appalling although they are dealt with properly nowadays. My assistants are trained and I've a specific team of ARs with whom I officiate all my matches so the teamwork and bonding there is really good. Also I would add that college games are much more feisty and challenging for me as a referee because lots of young college students attend those games and the sentiments and rivalry between colleges create a really challenging atmosphere for the referee to deal with. Plus in college games players are comparatively less well trained and awful flying tackles and all sorts of physical behaviour are even more common than district games. All in all I would sum up that college games actually present a bigger challenge than district games for me as a referee.
 
I’d been interested to hear what a match fee was. I was near Dehli recently and discussed salary with a MasterTech at a dealership. Some on here would be embarrassed to say they got more for two games on a weekend than this qualified mechanic managing a small team got in a week!
 
Match fee in district level isn't too great. Not really enough to sustain a proper living anyway. Most people refereeing here do it because of their passion and as a hobby. We don't have enough opportunities to become professionals. I myself am a student of Chemistry Honours and will have a career there. Refereeing is a big passion for me but unfortunately turning it into a profession would remind mere dream. Refereeing for living isn't a great idea here but as of me I'll keep pursuing it as a passion and I look forward to grab every small opportunity that comes my way.
 
@santa sangria No specific instructions as such but they do prefer more lineant, man managing approach in dealing with dissent, physical play and so on. But sometimes circumstances force us to issue straight red in opening minutes as well and we receive full backing then. Personally I idolise some European referees and I prefer adjusting my style as per situations' demands. I don't allow players to take me for granted and at the same time I don't take up a headmaster like approach all the time. I generally follow Björn Kuipers a lot so my style is influenced a lot from his style. In general we are asked to be firm in handling with dissent and violence and we're backed well when we make brave decisions.
 
Hi Soham, Welcome to the Forum, this may seem like a loaded question and some members over here wouldn't really understand the significance in the way I ask it. Does your or the players faith affect games? I've seen at first hand the Hindu / Seikh harmony and it was explained how they had no interest in Kashmir (Muslim part of India) or Pak1stan (mainly Muslim part of ex-India). No travel or even interaction!! That may of been biased comments from my hosts but is this a factor in your role as a referee. These countries still shoot missiles over the borders on a daily basis so I would guess there is some segregation!!
 
Great question. I was thinking of asking something similar about class divides in Indian football... Does it bring people together?
 
I think the Class System or Caste System is a completely different question Santa Claws. I saw that too, that’s not really a religion thing it’s probably a family money type question. There are huge gaps between the hugely rich elite and many others who could never get the chance to get rich even if they so wished. I may have to return soon to do some training, I enjoyed it immensely last time but the traffic is truly something else.
 
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(I realise it's a different question chief ;) I've been a couple of times all over the West coast and seen the extremes first hand. Genuinely interested what role footy has in Indian society.. obviously some fairly big topics here so do't wish to hijack or dilute the simple matter of welcoming the OP :))
 
In the lower sections of the society the problems between Hindus and Muslims are pretty prevalent I would say but less so in the higher sections. And you're right about the caste and class divide as well. But I operate in Kolkata which is in West Bengal and here there is really good harmony between everyone and I would say sports like football and cricket all play their roles in that. The teams I referee are religiously diverse where all people get chances and I've personally never encountered any such religion related problem in a football game so I would say players' or referee's faith don't really affect games. But as I have not travelled much outside my state for refereeing purposes so I cannot give too clear picture about how religious faiths or class divides affect football in other parts of India. In my state it's pretty harmonious in that aspect and I've never had to be perturbed by any such issues while refereeing a game in Bengal (Kolkata).
 
I was bowled over by the friendliness of the people i encountered in Gurgaon (near Dehli) I even wore my England Cricket top on a night out. Lots of new buildings and motorways being built but not far away some areas that were pretty grim. I did see a park with a football pitch in it, no grass whatsoever and tree branches for crossbars, This was a huge city with millions of inhabitants and lack of space so i suppose football takes a backseat to Cricket I assume Soham??
 
You're absolutely right. Cricket is a craze here and people are absolutely crazy about it with football taking a backseat. But now scenes are changing. We are really excited about the U-17 World Cup as a nation and I hope this will be a new beginning. Personally I'm into officiating in both cricket and football as umpire and referee respectively and I love both equally.
 
Apart from the Aussies, India is our biggest challenge, especially away... Cant see it changing too quickly as 1.33 Billion people don't start supporting football overnight. Glad you like both sports, Ive only played cricket at school, I was playing 20/20 35 years ago... It was six, four or hole out, I didn't really know any defensive shots....
 
People do support and watch football but very few have the passion for the game. But those of us have that passion we follow a lots of Premier League games and primarily UEFA Champions League for which I remain awake from 12:15 to 02:30 am on match nights. That's how passionate I am particularly about European football. I love to learn a lot from European referees and I make notes from all matches I see on TV.

In our school days in the games classes we used to play cricket with short hand bowling. Only fours were allowed and hitting a six would mean you're out. But the school tournaments and inter- house tournaments follow usual playing conditions and are played absolutely as per the laws of the game. No tinkering there. Also I'm still involved with umpiring with my school in various tournaments and they've a very rudimentary form of DRS installed as well so I'm getting a taste of decisions being reviewed as well in it's simplest form here as well.
 
We had the Little Magician at Yorkshire towards the end of his career, a wonderful ambassador for the game, a truly wonderful cricketer and very humble too.
I remember playing in the same year as a lad from another local school who ended up as a GK at Swindon Town when they were in the Premiership in the early 90's, he was good at everything, football, cricket, rugby, every time we played them he would turn up and you just knew you were in for a losing game. I think it was 10 overs, he opened and got 50/70 and then he opened the bowling and we got less that 20 all out, he got most of us... We weren't used to a relative 'man' performance against us, he was just on another level...
 
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