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I am going to assume this is High School.

1. There are too many games on the same night. Why everyone in the world in certain areas have to play on Friday night, for example, is beyond me. This, of all things, greatly limits the number of officials that can be assigned. Either you need to separate the girls season and boys season or schools need to start playing on other nights.



Part of the allure of Friday night is probably an attempt to build a fan base in areas that are conditioned to the ways of pigskin football--Friday night is game night, and also not a work night for many, so that's when you get your crowds and therefore your revenue. Another reason is to alleviate some of the concern of student athletes being out late on school nights and suffering academically the next morning--Friday night games don't have classroom consequences on Saturday mornings. I agree, though, that it needs to be broken up for the sake of the availability of officials; region coordinators and schedulers could look at scheduling games that involve significant travel time for one team on Fridays, while games with nearby opponents could be scheduled on weeknights, as the students would still be able to get home at a reasonable hour after the match.
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2. Your assessment system for referees is as only as good as the assessors. Coaches can not be assessors they have a bias, they have a stake in the game. You need people from the referee associations to go out and assess referees. People who are already certified to assess referees by taking the USSF assessors course is a good start.


I agree that coaches have a natural bias, as they have a stake in the game. That does not rule out the possibility that other assessors would also have other kinds of bias--for example, protecting the professional image of the officials as a group. At school, while students are certainly biased about their ratings of teachers on disciplinary matters, the administrators who handle the referrals would also prefer to err on the side of the teacher if possible--it helps to maintain the authority of the system. I would like to think, though, that the majority of adults are capable of giving useful feedback even under the influence of bias. As a coach, I believe you should respect a match well-called even when the decisions don't go your way.

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3. The verbal referee abuse needs to stop, from coaches and spectators. Referees need to stop it with cards or game terminations, and AD's need to stop it by actually going to some of these games to see it first hand. Finally the league needs to start punishing these schools, but you will never get younger referees if it continues.



Agreed. Abuse solves nothing, helps no one, and creates further problems. I would personally appreciate feedback if there is inappropriate crowd interaction, as coaches often completely "tune out" what is coming from the stands behind our backs and are totally focused on the field.
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4. Assistant Referee pay needs to go up to at least 2/3 the pay of the Center Official. In a lot of places it is only half. Some people dont want to go out and run two lines, however, a good AR is worth his weight in Gold.



Agreed...a good AR makes a huge difference in a well-called match. I was just looking at the figures...we could accomplish the 2/3 standard by adding about $10 to each AR's pay per game. That's $20 per game. For an 18-game schedule with half of those at home, this adds up to about $180 per season...the cost of three good-quality game balls, and not enough to make or break any program. If it makes a difference in getting quality people their due, I wouldn't argue.

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