SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Parents behaving badly

The designated home team. Or BOTH playing clubs. Or the home club of the neutral venue. Or, preferably, ALL OF THE ABOVE. It's complicated, I know. But the main problem here is the utter lack of accountability on the part of:

*Parents, who misbehave.
*Poorly trained or over-matched officials, who often over-react or fail to deal with situations at all.
*Clubs, which are more interested in the balance sheet than in the positive qualities they're SUPPOSED to foster.
*SCYSA, which is arguably as inept a "youth sports" organization as there is in the state. (Including SCHSL and SCISAA).

There are situations in which parents should OCCASIONALLY sound off. If I see an official (ESPECIALLY AN ADULT OFFICIAL) whose ineptitude fosters a dangerous atmosphere in which kids may be injured, I WILL have a say, I WILL take names, and I WILL pursue it. I'd do exactly the same thing if my child WASN'T playing, and I hope you'd do the same for my child.

If that offends folks, let THEM pay the medical bills for my kid's torn ACL, or pass the hat for an even more catastrophic injury.

don't all parents have to sign a code of conduct?

My daughters used to play for a club that required code of conduct forms signed by players, parents and also coaches. But I can't remember the last time seeing those forms distributed and signatures required other than player codes of conduct for ODP.

Backscreen17....USSF officials have insurance coverage of either 1 or 2 million dollars when they are doing a game. As for injuries, I have seen most injuries happen from either a freak thing, or from a good play...actual ACL injuries that I have seen from a poorly officiated game=0. I understand your concern with an official not protecting the players, but you have to take into account the level of play, players, history, etc.... It is interesting that in many posts you are complaining about referees. Maybe you should make yourself very involved with referee development and retention. There are many young referees that I have had the chance to referee with that do only one year of games and never return to the field. Most had played a lot of soccer to that point, and would have been a great asset to the referee community with proper development and mentoring. Unfortunately overzealous parents and coaches that can't look beyond the fact that soccer at its heart is just a game cause a lot of the problems. (and yes, some referees bring it on themselves too) Soccer is not life or death, not the end all be all....it is just a game that people love to play.

Soccerboy: I, too, have seen injuries from good, clean, play, or "incidentally" as part of the game. Who hasn't? The point is that ANY injury that results IN ANY PART from poor officiating (and I HAVE seen two in the past few years) is unacceptable. Two weekends back, I saw a horrendously officiated/controlled match degenerate into a series of rash challenges, including one that I would characterize as a near career-ender. Thank god the kid wasn't carted off with a compound lower-leg fracture. The ruling: a yellow card.

I will GLADLY stop the stream of commentary on this subject when I see evidence of an active evaluation/discipline system for officials. And good, conscientious officials SHOULD be leading the charge to purge the clowns.

The "game that people love to play" loses all credibility in the context of poor, home-town and/or casual officiating.

To the extent that works, great!

Now, here's one for you. You're on the road. You witness dreadfully bad officiating. So, you find the assigner's contact info, and give him/her a call. Here's what happens:

1) The assigner assumes you're a nutty parent who knows nothing (when you've spent the better part of 30 years coaching competitive youth sports); and or
2) The assigner immediately goes defensive, and sticks up for his officials.

A few years back, I witnessed/heard a ref in northern Florida actually instructing home-team players (in Spanish) how to defeat the visitors' offside trap. When I called the local assigner, he told me: a) That referee doesn't speak Spanish, but b) You might have heard him speaking in a Lebanese dialect. I asked/pointed out that: a) I know and understand Spanish when I hear it; b) Why would a referee speak Lebanese to players who don't know it?; and c) Why would a man refereeing a U.S. Youth Soccer game speak anything BUT English in addressing players?

The guy essentially hung up.

I don't advocate post-match confrontation, and am not about to "demand" a name. But then, I actually know how to find these things out. What about those folks who aren't as well connected? What about "road" situations, where the official can essentially disappear into an assigner's cloud of denial?

Backscreen I am not sure if there will ever be a way to solve this. Youth sports has this problem in all sports and at all levels, they depend on adults to sign up to referee, some take it very serious and work hard, others do not. The only thing you can do is tell you players to adjust to the game and play hard. Good luck!

coached a match in Augusta this season- u14g. Our player dribbles through 2 defenders, puts one away- offsides. We regain possession, pass back to central mid, who dribbles through defender and puts it away- offsides. Opponent gains ball, has a player on our goal line behind my back four who ignore her as she is obviously in an offsides position, ball comes over the top, player at goal line puts it away- goal, then she immediately steps off the field saying she was not in the play but was off line tying her shoe. After the match, discovered that both the Center and the AR had sisters on the opponents team.
I was told to report it but what good would that do- it is kind of like spilled milk at that point- my girls did a remarkable job and played one of the best games they played all season IN SPITE of poor officiating, they kept their heads up and did not allow the refs to ruin a very competitve match for them.
We need to get more youth invested in officiating and we need more evaluations during season- having the few we have now is just not enough to keep pace with the growth our sport is enjoying in this state.

Not to highjack your thread... but soccerforlife your post fits right in with the thread I started about a ref evaluation system being needed in SC. Other sports have more bodies to pull from because so many good ole boys played football, basketball, and baseball. Soccer growth continuing at a good clip makes this tough, and the need for a systematic feedback system vital. Today there is no system to speak of.