A fellow recreational soccer coach liked the old adage, “players win games, coaches lose games, and referees ruin games.”
Let's edit this:
Players win games. Coaches lose their minds. Umpires keep the games going.
Parents ruin the game.
One example is the recent State Cup match in Connecticut between Hartford Athletics and the Connecticut Rush, which was played at Trinity Health Stadium, home of Hartford Athletics’ USL Championship team.
A video has surfaced showing Hartford Athletic fans in a bit of a panic after a call was made in favor of Rush's possession. Without context, it's unclear how much malice there was prior to the incident, but the young official's patience was running out. He ordered the crowd out before play resumed.
Hartford Athletic coach Robby Cardoso did his best to get the fan out of there, but for reasons only known to the fans, he stayed put.
The umpire then stopped the game. The Rush was leading 1-0 at the time, and the final score was recorded as such. (The state committee will decide whether to replay the stopped game or whether either team will advance to the tournament.)
Video captures the aftermath, and while it's easy to share in the Rush players' joy and rejoice in the poetic justice meted out to the rowdy players who refused to leave, it's heartbreaking to see the Hartford Athletic players: They're devastated.
It's one thing to lose a soccer game because the other team scored more goals than you did. That's all you get. You can't win them all. It's quite another to lose a soccer game because your team's supporters, and maybe the family of one of your players, felt that fighting for the right to yell loudly for a throw-in was more important than allowing the younger players to finish the game.
Again, the turning point was a throw-in, one of the least important actions you can take in a soccer game, and seeing a crowd go crazy over a split-second loss of the ball might be shocking unless you're a youth soccer referee, in which case it happens every week.
In youth matches, simple logistics often put referees at a significant disadvantage in calls regarding possession. Many matches do not have assistant referees, so all decisions are left to a center referee who is not tasked with standing on the touchline. Parents are often only a few feet from the line, so they have an easy view by necessity, and so they tend not to sympathize with referees who cannot clearly see what they see so clearly. They also do not understand that youth teams tend to let go of the ball soon after a throw-in.
It's not just a parent thing. I once had to give a yellow card to an assistant coach who kept complaining about a throw-in, claiming it went straight for a goal. It didn't matter to him that the play was on the other side of the field. It also didn't matter that the throw-in was on his own offensive side. And it only “went straight for a goal” in the sense that a player on the other team dribbled three-quarters of the field, beat several defenders and scored.
But as I found out in a recent last-minute match, parents are the worst. I was literally poached from a job refereeing on an adjacent field to serve as the sole official in an U-11 match. Midway through the second half, the ball rolled over the line. I thought the ball had crossed the goal line, so I called for a throw-in. A couple of parents disagreed.
When parents get infuriated by a possession call, they often spiral out of control, assuming the referee must not know what he's doing. A few minutes later, one of our players went down in the penalty area, and when I disagreed with the parents about whether there had been a foul, “incompetent” was among the words hurled at me.
This brings us to the age-old question of umpiring: Should umpires interact directly with the spectators?
Of course, this doesn't happen at professional games, where uncontrollable crowds are the preserve of security, but in youth soccer, parents are often in close proximity to the game, and with referees fleeing the game in droves, we need to stop this abuse.
Some experienced umpires try to build rapport by talking with parents before and during games, which helps to some extent, but can also become hostile when a controversial call creates an expectation that the conversation will continue.
Many experienced umpires take the opposite approach: don't talk to anyone except the players and coaches. Period. If the crowd gets out of hand, pick up the ball, call a coach, let the coach handle it, or if that doesn't work, abandon the game.
After five years as a referee, I’m still halfway there. Sometimes a little joke can remind fans that the person blowing the whistle is a human being, not an automated, robotic authority figure. But it’s important to know where to draw the line. I’ve improved in this regard since the ugly U-10 upset of 2020. I think I did the right thing then by quickly asking two parents to leave the sideline before violence erupted, but I missed several opportunities to de-escalate. But things escalated during my “incompetent” game. During a hydration break, I addressed a group of offending fans and focused my gaze on one person I thought was the ringleader. They told me I was talking to the wrong person. “Well, whoever it was,” I said. They continued yelling that I was the wrong person.
The tournament officials finally arranged for a center referee so I could stop the match and scurry off to the next match to start on the field next door. Do you know how far I had to walk to get off the field? Joy!
In the Connecticut game, social media forums generally support the decision to stop the game. Should the referee have directly warned the offender? Opinions are divided. It is noteworthy that if this game had been played on a typical youth soccer field rather than a stadium, the parents would likely have been on the opposing sideline. In this case, the coach was also there when the referee addressed the fans.
So there may not be a one-size-fits-all approach here, and while there are guidelines to avoid responding to the audience, you may find situations where it is unavoidable.
But overall, this problem can be avoided. Very easily.
Parents just need to curb it.
That way, I won't have to explain to my kids why an argument over a throw-in was important enough to forfeit a State Cup semifinal.