Question Number: 18109

Law 5 - The Referee 12/10/2007

RE: Select Under 17

Ron Hoyt of Houston, TX USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 18061

Wow, you'all are way off base. Law 5 outlines the duties of the referee; not rules to live by [18061]. Wow, I love the game but not at the expense of children's safety. The coach's primary responsibility is to protect those children; he can pull his players if he sees fit and the ref can do as she sees fit - suspend, abandon, whatever the rules call for. Lest you think I'm only blasting the ref, I'll blast both coaches since it was their players throwing elbows at 9!

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

No one here disagrees with you. By following Law 5, which the referee in question did NOT, we give a safe place for the players to play

Answer provided by Referee MrRef

You are entitled to your opinion Coach Ron. What this series of questions has done for the gent that wrote in is it has started the steps to offer the training necessary so the referees in that club are better educated. The gent who pulled his players off is a member of the club's board of directors and he is in a position to correct what he saw. He contacted us, we discussed it with some folks at the highest levels of US Soccer, they offered how to begin corrective action. I called the gent and spoke with him because I care about the safety of the players. We discussed how to implement that training either through the youth soccer organization that has failed, so far, to ensure the continued training of its referees or using assets available through AskTheRef.com. I offered to attend the next board meeting of the club and give a sample of what we can offer in the way of training. Yeah, we're way off base. Thanks for the compliment coach.

Law 5 has outlined the Powers and Duties of the referee since 1937 and it is something to live by, after all Law 5 is one of the 17 Laws of the Game. Your opinion is valuable, but I'd hang onto it until all the facts are in because, in this case, AskTheRef is actually part of the solution.

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 18117