Referees

Referees are vital members of our club and we want to ensure that they continue to develop in their craft. One way to ensure this is for coaches to give helpful feedback to the refs through George Pinter, our Head Ref or Jim Niebuhr.

Take a few minutes after a game to communicate both positively and critically regarding the referees involved with your games. If you do chat with a referee after a game, remember that it is not your role to straighten him or her out. You may have some questions as to why they made or didn’t make a call from the game. They will make some mistakes and we have to learn to live with this. It is not an easy job, so remember that when communicating with them. It is also important that we coaches set the example for our players and parents in terms of how we respect the referees during and after games. This applies to your team’s parents on the sideline as you are responsible for them.

The referee has final authority over calls and non-calls as well as field conditions to determine whether or not to play or cancel a game. Please note that a volunteer running the sideline flag during a game (coach or parent) is not to call offsides. This is the responsibility of the referee and he/she is helped only if he/she has certified assistant referees. We encourage you also to go to the bcsoccer website occasionally and personally review the Laws of the Game as they do evolve a bit over time.