Question Number: 15072

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 3/29/2007

RE: travel Under 14

ken Teevens of lansing, michigan America asks...

i know a player on the opposing team cannot block a punt from the other teams goalie but this reffere i had in one game did said it was a goal do you think this ref. should be fired?

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Ken,
each referee is a match condition filled with whatever experiance or knowledge or lack of either he brings to the game. While we can forgive inexperiance and misinterpretation of the laws to one who knows no better, we best see effort to do the best with what they do possess!

Training, mentoring, assessments, peer evaluation with post game review all factor into a referee getting better.
Here if a referee allowed a player to block a keeper's punt he needs to get better by recieving support and training or did the keeper kick the ball at the player and the referee correctly saw it as a good goal?

If we fired players for missing shots not many players left by the end of a match now is there?
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Ken, in another question you said you wanted to become a referee this year. How would you like to be "fired" if you make a mistake in one of your games?

If a ref gets a call wrong, we should look to correct that problem. Maybe he doesn't know the Laws well enough, and needs additional training. Maybe he's not experienced enough to recognize infractions of the Laws. But if we just fire the ref, we will replace him with another rookie ref who will make some new mistake next week.

As Ref Dawson has commented, it is a judgement call as to whether the player prevented the keeper from releasing the ball or not. The ref may not have seen it as you did. I suspect the call went against your team, did it not? When you become a ref, you will find out that what you see oftentimes does not match what the players, coaches and spectators see.