The referee’s perspective: The untold story of the world’s most popular sport
The whistle blows, the crowd roars in frustration as referee Mark Geiger finds himself surrounded by a ferocious mob of Colombian players screaming in his face. Geiger would later find himself blamed by Colombia fans, all over social media, for their defeat to England.
This is the kind of atmosphere and treatment referees can expect when walking onto a soccer pitch, regardless of the level of play. From the hectic matches of eight-year-olds and their sometimes obnoxious parents, to the quarterfinals of the World Cup, the referee is repeatedly the target of hostility from all sides. It can be rather perplexing why referees would want such a job.
Unfortunately, it seems that many soccer fans and players around the world are largely unaware of how much thought and ability it takes to be a referee. This is especially true of one of the referee’s most important responsibilities: controlling a match and preventing it from spiraling into chaos amid the emotions of players, coaches, and fans.
Managing a soccer match is much more complicated than it may seem at first.
“A lot of people don’t understand…why [referees] may be inconsistent to the extent of, ‘I call this play today, a foul, and the next play tomorrow, I didn’t — maybe it’s the exact same physical things, but every other aspect was different — the temperature of the match, the skill level of the players…,” said Al Prado, AYSO Section 1 director of referee instruction and national referee, in a recent interview.
Scott Davis, another national referee and the Area 1C referee administrator, described that spectators during a match often don’t understand.
“Handling…Its not only the spectators, the commentators feed into it because they’re all into this ‘arm in an unnatural position’ which the [Laws of the Game] specifically says that the position of the arm does not necessarily mean there is an offence.” In addition, he said, “Fans don’t appreciate advantage.”
The question that remains is how can players and fans properly learn the rules of soccer in order to better understand the referee? Surely tossing out copies of the referee’s rulebook to every fan would not be very productive. Increasing referee involvement in the commentary of matches, however, is a possible solution.
For example, soccer rules expert, Dr. Joe Machnik, has been prominent in broadcasts of the 2018 World Cup and has provided explanations for the decisions of referees in each match. On the topic of Machnik, Prado said, “He provides good insight, if he can keep it un-biased.”
Perhaps broadcasting channels could go one step further and include a referee in the commentary box to be more involved in the analysis of a match. Davis, however, believes that a referee in the commentary box would not be the best solution. In terms of the soccer rules consultant, “Ultimately, the Laws of the Game say it’s in the opinion of the referee, not in the opinion of Dr. Joe Machnik,” Davis said.
“I think the biggest thing that would help would be if the commentators would read the…Laws of the Game,” Davis added.
Commentators are the largest source of understanding the rules for fans, and therefore, it is crucial that they improve their knowledge of the laws if a positive impact on spectators is to be made.
The issue of spectators’ understanding of referees and the rules of soccer doesn’t seem to have a clear solution. While including Machnik in the match commentary may help, referees will need more than rules experts to make spectators appreciate the difficult task set before them.
