Steve,
I referee soccer at the high school, and college level. It is a fast paced game where I must make split second decisions, about both, rules and the spirit of the game infractions, while play is ongoing
The rules of soccer provide specific sanctions for certain infractions. They include awarding a free kick, yellow card, and red card.
That's it.
If a free kick is awarded, it represents an advantage to the team taking the kick. That advantage, generally at a minimum, restores possession of the ball, and at a maximum, virtually guarantees a goal, if awarded from the penalty spot, which is 12 yards out from the goal, and only one defender allowed.
A yellow card offense, means the offending player is persistently offending, dissenting, or openly questioning the calls of the referee, playing in an unsportsman like manner, playing dangerously, or other type infractions. It warns the offending player that their continued behavior will result in them being ejected from the game. If a player accrues two yellow cards in one game, they are ejected from the game, they can be substituted for, but the offending player must sit out the remainder of the game, and the entire next game their team plays.
If a player commits a more serious foul, they receive a red card. They are ejected from the game, they must sit out their teams next game, AND their team plays short handed the remainder of the game, because they cannot be substituted for.
All of these sanctions are handed out publicly, and some might seem to be harsh, or humiliating, and some of the sanctions prescribed by the rules, I personally don’t feel warrant that serious a sanction. But I am not there to decide which rules to apply, and which to ignore, I am there to enforce the rules as they are. And you can imagine what happens when I whistle a foul, and the player says, "I didn’t know that was illegal." Well now they know.
Interestingly enough, some players try diligently to play within the rules all the time. Occasionally they mess up, but it is the exception not the norm for them. Some kids play deliberately on the edge, and they accept the sanctions as a normal cost of doing business. They know they are on the edge, and occasionally slip over, and they don’t quibble when they get a foul called. These kids are a pleasure to work with, even though they are highly competitive, and play hard to win.
There are some kids, who consistently foul, because they don’t care about the rules, or they aren’t as skilled, and they are trying to make up for it, by playing illegally, or some other reason. Some kids think the rules should be applied to everyone else but them, and they constantly foul, and then cry and fuss, if they themselves get bumped. These are the kids who, thru any given season, receive the majority of the yellow and red cards.
Now I wont go into why specific sanctions are awarded when, because that would take too long. Suffice to say this post is about effect.
If a player fouls another, and I blow the whistle, stop play, and award a free kick; there is no need for me to explain to the player what they did. They know what they did, they are supposed to know the rules, and they just have received immediate, public feedback, on their actions. They can see that they have hurt their team.
If I am required by the rules to issue a yellow card, the player knows, not only have they hurt the team, but that they need to get themselves under control, if they want to continue to contribute to the team’s effort, much less stay in the game for personal pleasure.
Obviously issuing a red card, the player knows they have seriously jeopardized their team’s chances of winning that game, and if they are important to the team, quite possibly their team’s chances of winning the next game. Not to mention their personal loss.
Monday night I was refereeing, in the first round of the high school district tournaments. The winner of this game, plays again the next night, the loser goes home, their season over.
Late in the game, his team with the game well in hand, a player took it upon himself to dispute a possession call. The ball went out of bounds. Both my assistant referee and I saw it as having been touched last, by this player’s team, and awarded the throw to the other team. This player however, decided that both my assistant and myself were ... well that would require a mind read. Suffice to say, he vigorously, and loudly began an editorial comment about everything he knew, I had done wrong the entire game. In the rulebook, this is called "dissent" and requires a yellow card sanction. He was promptly rewarded for his efforts.
Now here we are with 8 minutes left to go in the game, his team up by 3 goals. It is an absolutely foolish thing to do, to get yourself sanctioned, over something that isn’t likely to have any bearing on the outcome of the game. Anyone with good sense would be thinking about, staying focused on the present moment, playing good defense, preserving the lead, any number of possible things.
Unfortunately 18-year-old males aren’t necessarily noted for good sense. And as a result instead, this player began to focus on everything he thought had been “wrongfully” done to him and his team. This player continued to make commentary on his way off the field. Which constitutes a second “dissent” offense. AND he sat on the bench, continuing, in his coach’s presence, to make comment. Third, fourth, and fifth ... offenses.
Now I was on the other side of the field, and could not hear him. But my assistant on that side could. Soccer, having been around for a while, has experience with almost every possible infraction context. And the Rules provide for this too. We are not supposed to stop play, to sanction this, BUT at the first opportune stoppage, it is supposed to be sanctioned. I don’t know what this young man thought. Perhaps he thought because nothing happened to him right away, that he was getting away with it. Or perhaps he thought it was OK, that he had paid his dues, the yellow card, and now he was entitled to fuss all he wanted. His continued dissent was encouraging his teammates to join in, which put them in jeopardy of being sanctioned as well. OR the coach could have been sanctioned which would have resulted in a $500.00 fine. This kid didnt care about anyone else, he was focused only on what was going on inside his head.
At any rate, my assistant got my attention, during a stoppage. I called time out, and my assistant and I discussed it. My assistant explained to me, what the kid was doing, and that the coach standing no more than 6 feet away must also be hearing the same stuff.
I then called the coach, and the young man on the field for a conference. Picture this, everyone in the entire stadium is wondering what is going on. I explained what my assistant had told me. The coach agreed that he had heard the kid, as he came off the field, and he agreed, that that constituted a second dissent offense. The coach then said he wasn’t aware of the young man continuing on the bench, and the other players beginning to take part.
I issued a second yellow card to this player. It was public, and no doubt humiliating. I expect it was humiliating to the coach as well. I expect it was humiliating to whomever it was that explained it, to the parents. I expect it was humiliating to the parents.
It meant that he could not participate in his team's next game the following night, their last game of the season, as it turns out, because they lost the next night. He was one of their best players, so I imagine his sitting out played a part in the loss. If he was a senior, it means he missed his team’s last game of his senior year. That's sad.
Now it would be ludicrous for me to concern myself with all those things that would occur later that night, or the next day. The rules are simple, and clear, and the sanctions aren’t open to interpretation.
One of the things I like about sports, is they can teach you a lot about life. Later in life, this young man will hopefully carry with him the lesson, a bit of egocentricity on his part in a soccer game, in his youth, cost him, and people he cared about. It would be my hope that, he, in the future, learns to temper his actions, and to think about the repercussions they will have on other people. Hopefully his coach, and his parents, and his school administrators, and even his teammates will help him to understand, and to grow past this.
It seems more likely, given the ircumstances, that instead, he will continue to blame me, and his coach, who was allowing it to continue, will not correct him, and his parents and friends, will conclude that I just had it in for him, for some reason.
So be it.
That makes it likely he will then have the opportunity for even greater public humiliation, at a later time in his life, when the stakes are greater. And he will still think it isn’t his fault.
And that is truly sad.
Steve, I don’t have the luxury, of considering all those future possibilities, good or bad. I don’t have the time to help guide in one direction, or another, and frankly most of the time my guidance wouldn’t be taken at face value anyway. Because I have a different agenda. I am there to apply the rules. It doesn’t make the game safe, it isn’t to molly coddle them. It is to see that both teams have the opportunity, to contest their skills, on an even playing field. It is to promote the spirit of sportsmanship, which is of far greater importance, than the wants of any individual player, no matter who they think they are.
Since I am the focal point, often I am held responsible by the fans, when their team suffers. Sometimes by the players and coaches too. But you and I both know, it is their own actions, that result in their being sanctioned.
It is easy to lose focus these days. So often we begin thinking about the suffering of the person being sanctioned. We might think some sanction was too severe, and our heart goes out to the person who is suffering. We tend to forget that when the rules are neglected, or deliberately broken, there is another player, or team, who suffers, as a result. And we don’t think about, if those rules weren’t enforced what would happen to the game as a whole.
The young man refused to control himself, and both he, and his team suffered because of it. If I had not done what I did, unpopular with some as it might have been, the other team, and the game as a whole, would have suffered for it.
Moderating is, at times, a bit like refereeing soccer.
You are concerned that other people reading in a post <Personal attack deleted> will come to the conclusion that this is an unfriendly place. That they will perhaps go elsewhere, somewhere they feel is more kind. I think this presumes that we will continue to have a lot of posts containing personal attacks. And I hope that assumption is mistaken. I think even the most reclariant, will realize, that if they wish to continue to post, they too must play by the rules.
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