How bad is the officiating at youth soccer games? I watched 6 games this weekend with awful officiating in all but one of them. Simple rules such as poor throw-ins, blatant (not even close!) offsides, and obvious handballs went uncalled. In one match, I heard a boy say the F-word twice and not even receive a yellow card (or the coach pulling him off the field).

Some, if not most, of the officials seemed only interested in their pre-game cash rather than being professional in manner. I witnessed two ARs with such poor mechanics in signaling which way the ball was to go, that I had to intervene mid-match and show them proper technique (not limp-wristing across the body).

Is it any wonder why parents/supporters get riled up when they are paying thousands of dollars for their kid to play and the lack of professionalism amongst the officials (particularly the young ones or the old ones that cannot move) is more common than not. We've all heard the "if you yell at them, they'll quit" mantra over the years from referee assignors and state officials, but the truth of it is that over the last 20 years, players have improved, coaching has improved, administration has improved, but the officials have arguably regressed.

I'm interested in seeing if anyone else has had similar observations.

I concur. I think the officiating at the club level is struggling because of the dramatic increase in club games over the last few years. On top of that it seems that many youth officials are just killing time til halftime or the end of the game so they can check their text messages or snap chats.

At the same time you have coaches that are coaching U13 open and classic leagues treating it like it's the world cup and those are the ages/divisions where young officials are learning on the job.

It's a complicated issue - poor officiating - in both club and SCHSL.

I believe most of what you said is spot-on.

It has gotten worse, however, it is MUCH better than SCHSL officiating. Honestly, I've see 16 year olds do a much better job at CR than many who have called it for years.

So far I've had about 7 games between my 2 club teams, one in the challenge league and one in the PMSL.......

So far, officiating has been ok. In my challenge league games, the refs haven't been on par with the level of play. In one particular game, the AR never was in line with the defense and that led to some very aggravating situations lol.

In the PMSL, maybe because I'm more lenient, the refereeing has been good quality. Refs were doing their job very efficiently. Some mistakes here and there, but even the most naive coach has to expect that.

I'm not sure what the state overall can do to better the refereeing. I know in my area, we have shortage of refs and in some weekends we have guys doing almost a full day's worth of games. Our club has tried to throw incentives to our youth players to get their refereeing licenses and we've had very minimal success.

Coaches and parents also have to do their part. I've seen plenty cases this season where a coach or a parent is berating the refs (and sometimes players) for a questionable call. I've been guilty of it as well in my short career and is something I'm working on changing.

i'm from the camp of not complaining unless you have a solution.

how do you propose it be fixed?