SOCCER I need to vent....badly

This is lengthy so don’t feel the need to read through.
Ok some may know that I’m a youth soccer referee. I had 3 games today all U12. First game nightmare. Attacking player kicks ball towards goal and is chasing it along with defender. Keeper runs out 5-6 yards outside the penalty area and picks up ball. I’m AR for the game. Ref is young maybe 14. He doesn’t know what to do. I told him it’s a red card offense and direct free kick.

he says he doesn’t want to give a card. I say he should so he does. Coach goes ballistic. Makes 2 ridiculous statements. You don’t give cards at this age, it’s a teaching moment and she doesn’t play goal and didn’t know the rules. My thought is I DON’T F’N CARE. Those are the laws of the game. This isn’t Baseball with a hundred ‘unwritten’ rules.

Now the coach comes on the field and starts to intimidate the young ref. Parents too. I step in because I know this is what they do and I don’t put up with bullying. He says he play unless card is revoked and tells his kids to leaves the field. Now of course the discussion gets heated and I wrongly dropped a number of F Bombs in front of the kids. All of a sudden it was about my behavior and I was setting a bad example. Of course pulling your team off because you don’t like the call is a great example to set.

In the end he got the ref to take back the card, which you can’t do, and gave an indirect FK. So I’m on the other teams side of the field. The coach and parents obviously agree with the call but also say this coach is a well known jerk. In the end his team loses and he said he’s reporting me. I don’t care I said I just told my ref assignor I QUIT!

fast forward to third game. Unbelievable!!!! Same team same coach, only now I’m center ref. I send my ARs over to check the players in. They come back with his sheet and he’s written a paragraph about how he’s playing under protest because of me. I took a marker and scribbled it out.

I’m telling my ARs about what happened and why I didn’t want to go over there. All of a sudden some parents come over and tell me it’s inappropriate to discuss what happened earlier because I’m poisoning their attitude. I told them to piss off and they didn’t have to worry I'm professional and I’m holding a grudge against their kids because their coach is a jackoff.

game goes fine and after I need coaches signatures. He looks at my scribbled out part and asks why I did it. I said it doesn’t matter it’s just for the league’s statistics. He said I’ll still reported you but left out your F bombs. I said I don’t F’N care because I already quit and I told them what I said.

I know some here are involved with youth sports. There needs to be a zero tolerance policy towards bullying. Whether it’s towards the kids or coaches or referees. Please don’t consider this a humble brag, but I take it seriously and I want to do a good job. I see a lot of refs doing nothing just standing there, not running down the line, calling offside from 10-15 yards behind the play. My knee is shot and I’m still out there. Standing for over an hour in the cold rain today being verbally abused all for.......$20. Yesterday was so good, I gave out 60 Halloween treat bags to 3 U10 rec teams. The kids were so happy. I saw one of the teams today and they came over to thank me again. That’s why I do it. I really enjoy it but I’m tired of listening to you’re an idiot or the coaches that scream at kids and make them cry.

ok I’m done. If you got this far, thank you. Make a change in the way you treat people

Sounds to me like everybody could have used a cooldown. You included.

That aside, I never understood the need to publicly vent over this kind of thing on a forum 😀

Its no different than people venting about watch stuff

There ain’t respect for nothin these days.

I guess from the late 60’s to the early 80’s played, coached, reffed 100’s of games. If the ref, official, or umpire made a shitty call there may have been a moan and or a groan but that was it.

parents screw everything up these days. Venting is therapeutic, better than a 5th of vodka or kicking the dog

I fence, and have occasionally have been roped into reffing Y14 and under tournaments and the parents are **the worst**. The kids are fine, the coaches can be a little pushy but know the rules, but fuuuuuck the parents. So I feel you. Hopefully you can still find joy in the game another way.

In my view it wasn't a red card. Yellow yes not a red. Seeing a situation like this differently is part of what lets us (in the UK at least) debate football all week.

Everything that happened afterwards is what spoils a really great game. I love football (soccer if you like),played it at a decent level until knee injuries stopped me and watched football every week and basic discipline has just got worse at all levels of the game. Its very sad because its sport, entertainment and should be fun to participate and watch not a battle ground.

an important part of soccer is accepting the ref's decision. Dissent is a red card, after all.
Players have to learn the rules, or it's not soccer.

I quit 2 months ago, just in time. I felt I was slowly losing it.
I don't regret quitting, & I imagine you won't either. Somebody elses turn.

I’m retired FIFA AR from Denmark, and I know the frustration you have - been there done that. But a good advice from one referee to another - always talk to the players, officials, parents in a nice tone no matter how ridiculous they behave - you are role model and you are authority for these kids. And never take critic personel.

I said Red because the attacker was running towards the ball. Yes it could be Yellow too or no card but at U12 competitive/Travel they should know the rules and since when don’t we give cards at that age. My son got a send off at 9. I didn’t complain he deserved it and I made him apologize to the ref after for giving him some lip.

it’s so different here in the US. One parent said getting a red would hurt the kid. It would be on their record and she would miss another game. That’s the teaching moment

You’re absolutely right. I lost my cool and that’s not how I want to be.

My daughter played Ultimate, in our school league, from 6th to 8th grade (12 to 14 years old mostly). Great sport, and one of the great traditions is that the players make all the calls. Not the ref (they don't have any), not the team coaches, not the parents, just the players. They were pretty much always able to make the right call and get on with the game without a lot of heavy weather.

That really sucks, and the coach should have never put you in that situation. However, like law enforcement officers, you have to be able to take a heap of crap and respond calmly. It is not something I am great at, so no judgement from me. If you were able to keep your cool and tell the coach calmly and assertively that the decision is final, and if he cannot accept it he must leave the field.

I do question the league and how they tell the coaches to interact with the referees. Every league I have been involved with tells the coaches that they are allowed to express a concern to a referee, and if they are not satisfied they can bring it up with the league or ref coordinator. Arguing with a referee is never allowed. This is what causes a referee to walk. We all know they are not doing it for the money, they do it for the love of the game.

absolutely. One of the problems, here, is that there’s not enough refs. They want to encourage young kids to get into it, 12 is the minimum but then they get put in situations they can’t handle, like today and a lot of them quit. US Soccer doesn’t care as long as they’re making money and there’s no support from anyone. You take the class and you’re thrown to the wolves so to speak. There are so many issues with soccer here it’s a joke. Different rules for different age groups, travel vs rec and then you go to a game which is 35 min halves and the coaches say we only play 30 min. Next game it’s it’s 35. We don’t play that way is something I hear all the time. Then there’s the saying from today, you can’t/we don’t give cards to kids at this age. This is why the USMNT will never do well. There’s no feeder system and most kids aren’t being taught properly.

my second game today was U10 boys. The one team Dominated with passing and possession. After the game I told the coach how refreshing it was to see this style of play. He was so appreciative and told me to go tell one of his fellow coaches that. Of course he wasn’t American, we don’t play like that

In my view the problem starts at the elite level of the game. Youngsters see their "hero" argue and swear at referees, dive and cheat so they think they can do the same.

In rugby by contrast there is real respect for the officials, the games can be brutal but players will accept the referees decision. It makes for a much better game.

In football you see decisions overturned and cards rescinded after the game if the referee got it wrong at the time but there really should be no debate. As long as the officials are making decisions based on their best understanding of what has happened and their knowledge of the game then that should be respected. It is a crying shame that respect for fellow players and officials has reached such a low point.

This is why I was very very happy when my son who had been playing football since 6 asked at 13 if he could stop as he wasn't enjoying it anymore, why? Don't like the atmosphere, parents interfering, not supporting the players, slagging them off when something goes wrong all that kind of stuff, all the stuff that I saw sitting on the sidelines watching, all the stuff that made me quit as an assistant coach a year before, now my son had seen it, didn't like what he saw and wanted out.

My son took up athletics, where your abilities determine how far you get but most clubs are in leagues where you can have A, B or C string runners allowing everyone the chance to get involved and have fun, parents are great and supportive and not judgemental. The kids even more supportive, helping each other, encouraging each other, working together, awesome atmosphere, really enjoyable.

Fun, the most important aspect of kids sport and something that goes missing as the kids get older when football is involved, it was great when playing 7 a side but as soon as 11 a side came along the atmosphere changed, suddenly parents are now world class referees, their eyesight better than an eagle's, their knowledge of the rules better than those who made them, booing the opposition (a real low in my book), refusing to allow their child to shake hands at the end as they were upset with the result.

Its parents that ruin sport for their children, I remember a game where the referee had had to send off a player from the home team for punching one of our players, who was left needing hospital treatment and stitches for a split lip, what had our player done to deserve this, simply scored a goal, the opposing kid didn't like being on the losing side so reacted, his father stood across the pitch shouting well done to his son, when the referee sent the boy off the parent came marching onto the pitch and started punching the referee. Result match abandoned, the league thank fully took the right action, both the player and parent were banned from all league matches for 3 years and the club was docked 20 points which meant they were relegated and banned from having spectators at matches for the rest of the season, parents could take their kids to matches but had to sit in the cars until the game was over, only the coach and assistant coach were allowed to stand on the touchline.

I feel for you having to put up with this but it is all too frequent, I often wonder how junior football survives when there are incidents like this.