Reading through all of this I debated if I should give an answer/opinion. The main reason is that I have a lot to say on the topic and this is probably going be long. I've started, so here goes...
I'll start with referee pay.
Paying youth refs more would be helpful, but it is not the be all and end all of solving the problem. As pointed out, just how much more would families be willing to pay in addition to their already exorbitant fees so the club could put that into better referees? Probably nothing! So where is the money to come from?
Most of the adults who do youth games don't do it for the money. They do it to for fun (in a weird sense of the word). Not that they would do it for free, but the money is secondary. As referees climb, they move up to other levels of play. The money is only marginally better doing adult amateur games, but then the headaches are less. You only really have to worry about the players and subs, all of whom fall completely under your jurisdiction. There are very few fans, and no crazy parents. College is good money. At a minimum you make about 3 to 4 times the amount that you make on an older youth game, and again, you don't have the parents to deal with. What's not to like about that?
Even if we could get the money to pay youth refs a lot better I worry that it would start attracting even more people who are in it only for the money. Hopefully we could get enough others in there to weed them out, but that won't be easy. So yes, better pay may help some, but other factors need to be instituted as well.
The next thing I would look at is availability.
We have lots of kids who are good refs and good players as well. As they become older and better as players, they tend to move up to better teams which require more of a commitment. So there's goes some of the available time for the player to referee. Now add in a crazy coach who won't let his players referee on any day when they have a game and you suddenly end up with a good former referee. I do know of one excellent young referee who gave up playing to concentrate on refereeing, but that's rare.
Maybe you can ask your coach to work with the players who are referees to give them a little time to do a few games. Good players often make good referees because they understand the game. That will help a lot in improving the type of referees that you get.
Refree Training next.
Teams now train 3-4 times per week. Referees "train" once per year. Do you see the disconnect? Again it comes down to money and time. Most clubs will not spend the money to help train referees. Nor will they spend the time to make use of the training programs that Georgia Soccer offers for free. Which practice night are you going to give up every week so that your young referee can get some hands on training? Who is going to pay someone to give that training?
Weeding Out the Weak Ones.
Georgia Soccer would love to be able to get rid of the bad refs. Problem is, who will we get to do the games? Would you rather have someone who doesn't leave the center circle or be told the tour game has been cancelled because they don't have a referee? As a referee assignor is once reported to have said: "Sometimes you have to hold your nose and assign them anyway!"
The assignor knows who the bad referees are, but sometimes has to use them anyway.
The Georgia Referee Committee is very strict about getting rid of bad eggs. They suspend, demote and even ban referees regularly. Of course, most of us don't hear about that because it's not advertised. On the other hand, missing an offside call or missing a foul won't get a referee banned. They have to break something in the Referee Code of Ethics for that to happen.
"Reporting" a referee because you didn't like the way they did your game doesn't count for much. As suggested in an earlier post, having your coach mention something to the local assignor has much more weight than anything you might try to do with the state. Also understand that a parent's word counts for little or nothing. Because of the inherent bias and the frequent lack of knowledge of parents, the state won't even allow you to lodge a complaint. It has to come from your coach.
Talk to your local assignor sometime. Not about a particular referee, but about the challenges they face in general. You would be amazed at the dynamics involved in trying to match the best possible available referee to a particular game.
So what steps can we really take to improve the referee on your particular game? Different posts have given some good ideas. Here's my take:
- Get the parents under control. When younger refs can operate without crazy parents and thus take the time to learn and improve instead of quitting, we will be able to get some better refs. This has to be the number one thing that can be done to improve the level of refereeing. A lot of referee "training" is on the job. Parents need to understand that.
- Allow players time to referee and to train as referees.
- Spend money on training referees as well as increasing game fees. If you can do both, then make incentives for the referees who will attend training. Maybe premium pay for games or pay for their recertification courses. That way you reward the ones who make the effort to learn and (hopefully) improve.
I really think those three things can make a huge difference, especially #1.
I close with an interesting story I once heard from a referee instructor.
A young, upcoming referee had done this coach's game. Some time after the game he ran into the coach and asked the coach (who was also a pretty decent referee) how he thought he had done. The coach replied that he thought he had done an excellent job. Throughout most of the game, he added, he agreed with every one of the referee's calls both for and against his team. Finally, though, he disagreed with the referee on a call.
The referee wanted to know what the call was. The coach said he did not remember, but at that point, it proved to him that he was doing an excellent job.
This answer puzzled the referee and the coach went on to explain: "You should be looking at the game from an unbiased position. I am looking at it from the biased position of my team. If I agree with every call you make, there is something wrong. Because of our different perspectives there must come a time when we disagree, and when that happened I was convinced that you were, in deed, doing an excellent job."
Think about that the next time you disagree with the referee!