There may be more thankless jobs in this world than refereeing – dental hygienists, sanitation workers and teachers come to mind – but you can probably count them on one hand. Referees perform a function that’s as difficult as it is important, yet they are routinely disrespected by players, coaches, fans and pundits for their mistakes – while their best performances go unnoticed. And when it comes to Major League Soccer, the referee’s predicament arguably has another layer of difficulty. Consider the situation when the league launched in 1996: There was an available pool of international players (the Valderramas and Etcheverrys) with elite-level experience, and there were American players – think John Harkes, Brian McBride and Eric Wynalda – who had the option of going to Europe to gain high-level experience. But the referees available to MLS back then? They had no such option. Is it possible, then, that the players had a head start on the refs in this league, and the refs have had to catch up? “That’s a fascinating question,” says Nelson Rodriguez, MLS executive VP of competition, technical and game operations. “And one that I hadn’t considered before. I think there’s some merit to it. The fact that the players had the liberty, and the global market – and the officials up to now, had generally not had that opportunity – would, at least theoretically, lend credence to that argument.” Whether or not you accept that proposition, you can’t deny the regular, and occasionally strident, complaints about the officiating that have issued from the mouths of MLS coaches, execs, players and fans through the years. With that in mind, the league linked up with U.S. Soccer and the Canadian Soccer Association in 2010 to create a referee task force. There were several initiatives discussed, but the leading idea was to create an independent company to oversee the professional referees in the US and Canada. Last year, that entity, the Professional Referee Organization (PRO), began its work, with former Premier League official Peter Walton in charge. PRO has instituted a number of significant changes in multiple areas, with the twin goals of increasing the quality of officiating and developing more elite-level refs in North America. They have two offices in New York City, one for office staff and the other housing the review center – “the nerve center” – which contains a bank of monitors that PRO staffers use to review MLS matches in real time each game-week. PRO also evaluates MLS referees after every performance, employing “match-day assessors” who assign a mark to each official for every game, based on criteria PRO has devised. The refs receive a written evaluation several days after the game as well. PRO has overhauled the refereeing culture on these shores, installed an extensive support system and training program for officials, and generally professionalized the endeavor to an extent unprecedented in North America. But how are they doing, one year into the job? Has the officiating improved in MLS? “What a great question to ask,” says Walton, 53, an affable Englishman whose dry sense of humor is perfectly suited to – or perhaps the product of – his lifelong occupation. “I’d be a fool to say, ‘No it hasn’t,’ ” Walton continues, “but truthfully, it’s not for me to answer. It’s all about perception. From my angle, though, our referees are increasing at the same pace as the league.” Actually, when you consider their starting point, they may be increasing faster than the pace of the league. When Walton began in 2012, MLS had just two full-time officials, and all of the refs convened just twice a year for training events. “Can you imagine someone like Peter Vermes or Sigi Schmid getting his players together just twice a year?” Walton asks. Now, the league has nine full-time refs (by way of comparison, the Premier League has 15), and the zebras gather 22 times a year for training events, something Walton calls “a significant improvement.” The officials now have three-day training sessions every two weeks during the season. At these events, Walton and his training development manager, Paul Rejer, go over clips from games to show the officials what they want, and what they don’t want. They have a sports scientist who monitors the referees’ nutrition, their fitness levels and their eyesight. They bring in stress-management experts who advise the refs on dealing with pressure, big crowds and national-TV atmospheres. Coaches attend these sessions, too, to talk tactics and help enhance the officials’ understanding of the game. PRO also has an office staff that handles logistical stuff, like travel, finances and administrative arrangements for the officials. And in an effort to provide the maximum high-level experience to their referees, PRO has trimmed Major League Soccer’s pool of available officials from 37 to 21. The leaner crew gets more exposure to top-flight games, and, ideally, more seasoning and experience as time goes by. The initiative is still in its infancy, but there are clear signs of its impact. “How do we bring in some younger ones and incentivize the program and allow these referees to get a lot of games? It’s really about experience.” Regarding the latter point, Walton mentions U.S. Soccer’s Platinum Group, which allows individual states to identify their best young referee candidates, who then receive financing, education and exposure to top-level competition. Of course it won’t happen overnight, Walton says. “Unfortunately, referees aren’t on the shelf at Walmart,” he jokes. “You don’t stroll in and pull two or three off the shelf.” Not to be forgotten in this is the simple fact that it’s a very difficult job. There’s a massive field to cover, 22 players to keep track of and decisions are frequently of the bang-bang variety, requiring a split-second judgment. “And we don’t referee in color HD, 52-inch screen TV,” Walton says. On top of all that, soccer’s rules – Walton calls them “the law” – are actually often subject to interpretation. And the referee is often cast into the role of “arbiter,” to use Walton’s phrase.
“It’s no good having a referee who knows the law, but can’t administer the law in the manner in which it should be [administered],” he says, adding that making judgments on the field is akin to the role of a neighborhood cop. “A good police officer knows how to deal with a guy who’s just [showing] a bit of bravado and a guy who’s being a downright nuisance,” he says. “And a good referee has a quality of managing the occasion, and managing the individual. That’s something you won’t read in the law book.” But what of the game-changing calls – critical offside flags, penalty decisions, red cards, goal-judgment calls – that draw the most ire from players, coaches and fans? Improving referee performance in this department is a central part of PRO’s agenda. Walton’s staff combs each MLS match and highlights the game-changing decisions, and if they conclude the official hasn’t made the right decision, then they look at the degree of difficulty of the call, factoring in several elements, and ultimately decide if the ref’s mark for that game should be adjusted based on the game-changing call. They’ve also gone public when they feel a referee has blown such a call, with no bigger instance than during last year’s Eastern Conference Championship, when they determined Ricardo Salazar should have given Houston defender Andre Hainault a red card for a breakaway tackle on D.C. United’s Rafael Augusto in the first game of the series. Hainault was issued a yellow card and stayed on the field, and went on to score a second-half goal that keyed Houston’s 3-1 win. After consistency, the issue that came up most regularly in conversations about the refs was that of communication. Players would like to get clear signals from officials during games, and more acknowledgment, even if it’s just to say, “I hear you, but I don’t agree with you.” And many people in the league would like to see more civility. For PRO’s part, they want to involve referees in offseason league and team meetings, not only to talk about what they do and why, but also “to get the human element in front of the players, and the coaches,” says Walton. “So they don’t just see us as a guy turning up on a Saturday with a black uniform to ruin their afternoon.” The greatest challenge ahead for PRO, as Walton sees it, is managing people’s expectations. While PRO’s impact will require a few seasons to measure accurately, the organization has, in fairly short order, established a framework for the rapid improvement of officiating in North America. “What we’re doing at the moment is establishing some principles,” says Walton. “We make mistakes, of course we do – and we will continue to make mistakes – but what we’re looking for is a direction to go in, and I think that the officials have now found that direction and are working towards it.” The structure is in place, says Walton. “All we need now is to build on that.”
Source: MLS
