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Canadian Ref Reviews


Grizzly

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Reffing needs to improve in this country and I think it is important that we give some feedback as to the performances of various refs. Since this applies to various leagues and can include international matches I think it belongs in this forum. I invite people to post their grading and critique of the refs they see in MLS, NASL and any other leagues. I will start with 3 from recent Impact games.

Impact-Baltimore July 18, 2010: Dave Barrie Ontario: F Very poor performance by ref who determined outcome of the game. Allowed Baltimore to score after they took possession by bodychecking a defender right in front of the ref. Impact players stopped playing on the play which they shouldn't have done but nevertheless it was such a clear foul that one understands why they thought it would be called. Numerous poor decisions throughout the match and complete inconsistency. Player after player for Baltimore fell down "injured" in the second half, one after another and yet this produced no yellow cards. His assistants need to learn that one is not offside when you run past the defender after the ball has been kicked.

Impact-Carolina July 14, 2010: Mauricio Navarro: A The third Impact game he has reffed this season including the AC Milan game and the third excellent performance. Consistent in his calls, not afraid to call fouls but doesn't buy diving or play acting. I like how he smiles at players when he thinks they are trying to pull one over on him. Very confident in his decisions.

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This isn't technically relevant, and it's surely been mentioned elsewhere, but it was nice to see Vergara on the line in the World Cup third-place game.

Then again, Archundia was in the middle, so...

Have any Winnipeggers here played games reffed by Vergara? I never played at a high enough level to have the privilege, but is he a decent ref or merely a world class linesman/referee's assistant?

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Have any Winnipeggers here played games reffed by Vergara? I never played at a high enough level to have the privilege, but is he a decent ref or merely a world class linesman/referee's assistant?

I've never been reffed by Vergara but I played 2 games where he was running the line and he's excellent. That was a few years ago at a Nationals Champ. From what I remember I don't think he refs at high levels (college and over).

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Hector hasn't reffed in the middle of the park for at least the last several years. He's stuck to lining recently and is obviously excellent. Played sweeper in a game he lined a few weeks before he left for the world cup and it's nice to know that he'll make the right call.

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^^ This thread is meant to publicize the successes and failures of Canadian referrees in the hope that it can be a positive influence on making the level of referreeing in this country better. At the very least I hope we can get an idea of who is doing a good job reffing, who is improving, who is staying at the same level no matter how much experience they get and who shouldn't be reffing at the pro level. For that reason, I hope others will review the home games of the other Canadian teams since we all share the same refs and I also welcome others to review the refs in the same games I do so we get a divergence of opinions.

BTW, the reason I gave Barrie an F on the game is an inexcusable mistaken call decided the outcome of the game. It was a clear, yellow card worthy foul that lead to a goal and Barrie was standing only a couple of metres from the play. Any ref who changes the outcome of a game will get an F from me. I think the Impact fully deserved to lose the game given the way they played but on the other hand they deserved to lose it by having legitimate goals scored against them. Barrie was poor and made a lot of mistakes throughout the match but if he hadn't made this mistake I would have given him a D. I have also read that he has only recently received an upgrade to National referree status so I am not saying he will never be a good referree at some point in the future but this was a very poor outing.

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Impact-St. Louis July 21, 2010: Geoff Gamble Ontario: C I obviously remember Gamble from the Impact V Cup game that he reffed/screwed up and it is probably no secret what mark I would have given him for that game. However, tonight was a much better performance from Gamble and I would have given him a B if I hadn't watched one play on the game highlights. Most of his decisions tonight were correct and he didn't fall for any gamesmanship. My main criticism of him is that he doesn't have much charismatic presence on the field nor does he always seem completely confident in his decisions. He is mostly a passive observer which is fine but he doesn't seem to command a lot of respect from the players. The play which made me drop his mark from B to C was the one leading to the double red cards which was a bit hard to see from the east end stands. Soares is given a hip check in clear sight of Gamble but no foul is called. Soares then gets up and charges after the guy for 10 yards and pushes him down right in front of the ref but again no foul is called. He then charges and fouls the next St. Louis player who gets the ball and finally Gamble is about to issue a card when this player gets up and shoves Soares. The second St. Louis player and Soares both receive red which was the right call but had the two earlier fouls been called the ensuing situation would not have occurred.

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Hector hasn't reffed in the middle of the park for at least the last several years. He's stuck to lining recently and is obviously excellent. Played sweeper in a game he lined a few weeks before he left for the world cup and it's nice to know that he'll make the right call.

This is incorrect, Hector does referee in the middle as well. in fact as well as being a FIFA AR, he is classified as a National referee but for major competitions and professional games the CSA splits officials either into a referee or AR category when you make the national list. However, his work with MSA doesn't allow him to ref mens provincial cup games within the province. He actually will be doing one game in the MMSL Prem in Manitoba tonight as the referee and had middles at last year's u-16 nationals here in Winnipeg.

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Have any Winnipeggers here played games reffed by Vergara? I never played at a high enough level to have the privilege, but is he a decent ref or merely a world class linesman/referee's assistant?

Hector is a very consistent referee. When in the middle, he officiates a very mexican/south american type of game. Very firm with strong authority.

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I do agree that such a topic seems to be an attempt to take shots at various referees. Grizzley, are you even a referee or perhaps a provincial or national assessor? Your comment that officiating needs to improve in canada is pointless. After watching the world cup, all nations must always strive to improve the performance of their officials. Each professional game is assessed by a qualified assessor who provides feedback to the officials so they are trying to improve the level of officiating. In canada it is an interesting situation as our professional teams play in "american" leagues and therefore expectations and instructions to officials are often dictated by the specific leagues. For example, you talk about navarro who is a FIFA referee. For the past two seasons he has been not officiating in MLS since the league officials responsible for officiating did not select him for their own reasons. So despite the fact that he is an international referee and once used regularly by concacaf (did a gold cup final with vergara) he doesn't even do the top league in Canada/US anymore.

If you are truly interested in the referee aspect, the bigsoccer forum has an entire section focusing on it and often talks about referees doing MLS games. As well, for the world cup there were discussion threads for each match on the referee crew's performance.

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I do agree that such a topic seems to be an attempt to take shots at various referees. Grizzley, are you even a referee or perhaps a provincial or national assessor? Your comment that officiating needs to improve in canada is pointless. After watching the world cup, all nations must always strive to improve the performance of their officials. Each professional game is assessed by a qualified assessor who provides feedback to the officials so they are trying to improve the level of officiating. In canada it is an interesting situation as our professional teams play in "american" leagues and therefore expectations and instructions to officials are often dictated by the specific leagues. For example, you talk about navarro who is a FIFA referee. For the past two seasons he has been not officiating in MLS since the league officials responsible for officiating did not select him for their own reasons. So despite the fact that he is an international referee and once used regularly by concacaf (did a gold cup final with vergara) he doesn't even do the top league in Canada/US anymore.

If you are truly interested in the referee aspect, the bigsoccer forum has an entire section focusing on it and often talks about referees doing MLS games. As well, for the world cup there were discussion threads for each match on the referee crew's performance.

I agree with this.

I don't mind fans giving their opinion about refs but it becomes problematic when fans are trying to keep track with refs performances. First, fans rarely have the knowledge of an assessor in term of the law of the game and FIFA interpretations. Second, fans are emotionally involved in a game when their club is playing so it becomes almost impossible to have an objective assessment of the ref performance. I'm not saying fans can't have an objective view, but bias often comes in the way when we are analyzing a ref performance.

That's why I'm not sure this thread will be helpful for us and the refs.

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Impact-St. Louis July 21, 2010: Geoff Gamble Ontario: C I obviously remember Gamble from the Impact V Cup game that he reffed/screwed up and it is probably no secret what mark I would have given him for that game. However, tonight was a much better performance from Gamble and I would have given him a B if I hadn't watched one play on the game highlights. Most of his decisions tonight were correct and he didn't fall for any gamesmanship. My main criticism of him is that he doesn't have much charismatic presence on the field nor does he always seem completely confident in his decisions. He is mostly a passive observer which is fine but he doesn't seem to command a lot of respect from the players. The play which made me drop his mark from B to C was the one leading to the double red cards which was a bit hard to see from the east end stands. Soares is given a hip check in clear sight of Gamble but no foul is called. Soares then gets up and charges after the guy for 10 yards and pushes him down right in front of the ref but again no foul is called. He then charges and fouls the next St. Louis player who gets the ball and finally Gamble is about to issue a card when this player gets up and shoves Soares. The second St. Louis player and Soares both receive red which was the right call but had the two earlier fouls been called the ensuing situation would not have occurred.

Good assessment... I felt all the other calls were good... Placentino went down on the edge of the box and it looked pretty convincing but he had never really had possession, so good on the non-call.

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I agree with this.

I don't mind fans giving their opinion about refs but it becomes problematic when fans are trying to keep track with refs performances. First, fans rarely have the knowledge of an assessor in term of the law of the game and FIFA interpretations. Second, fans are emotionally involved in a game when their club is playing so it becomes almost impossible to have an objective assessment of the ref performance. I'm not saying fans can't have an objective view, but bias often comes in the way when we are analyzing a ref performance.

That's why I'm not sure this thread will be helpful for us and the refs.

I would think that a debate thread in which everyone can post their impressions, some biased some not, would eventually produce some type of aggregate consensus position on the general opinion of the refs among users of this forum. Ultimately how useful it is is debatable, but I don't see how it could be problematic. If it was a thread only for Impact fans, for example, to whine about reffing in Impact games then yes, pointless and even detrimental.

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I would think that a debate thread in which everyone can post their impressions, some biased some not, would eventually produce some type of aggregate consensus position on the general opinion of the refs among users of this forum. Ultimately how useful it is is debatable, but I don't see how it could be problematic. If it was a thread only for Impact fans, for example, to whine about reffing in Impact games then yes, pointless and even detrimental.

I just don't think you'll get much of a thread like this because most of us don't always have the knowledge of the FIFA and CSA interpretations on some type of plays.

I don't mind debates but I've seen too many discussions here including false assumptions about how the law of the game should apply.

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I don't think we're all the unsophisticated rubes you make us out to be. Most judgments of refs aren't based on the minutiae of particular decisions, but rather major missed calls, and the overall impression of control of the match or lack thereof. There is a marked difference between, say, Collina and the likes of Joel Aguilar and Benito Archundia, and we all can see it. The differences in quality between our national officials are also sometimes stark and can be easily evaluated even by the less-trained eye.

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I don't think we're all the unsophisticated rubes you make us out to be. Most judgments of refs aren't based on the minutiae of particular decisions, but rather major missed calls, and the overall impression of control of the match or lack thereof. There is a marked difference between, say, Collina and the likes of Joel Aguilar and Benito Archundia, and we all can see it. The differences in quality between our national officials are also sometimes stark and can be easily evaluated even by the less-trained eye.

Difference between Collina and Archundia?

In FIFA assessor minds it seems there is very little difference as Archundia is a top 3- 5 FIFA ref.

My point isn't to bash the fans, but from my experience players and fans have often a lesser knowledge of the law of the game than refs. This is why I'm not too sure of what to make of this kind of thread.

Like someone else said, the BS forum is probably the best place to have an objective assessment of a ref performance.

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I do agree that such a topic seems to be an attempt to take shots at various referees.

Why would I be interested in taking shots at referrees? I do not know any of them personally. Yes there are some who I have seen continually produce poor performances and I certainly do feel entitled to express my opinion on this. However, if I was just interested in taking shots at referrees I would have given Gamble a bad review for yesterdays game in revenge of the V Cup game.

Grizzley, are you even a referee or perhaps a provincial or national assessor? Your comment that officiating needs to improve in canada is pointless. After watching the world cup, all nations must always strive to improve the performance of their officials. Each professional game is assessed by a qualified assessor who provides feedback to the officials so they are trying to improve the level of officiating. In canada it is an interesting situation as our professional teams play in "american" leagues and therefore expectations and instructions to officials are often dictated by the specific leagues. For example, you talk about navarro who is a FIFA referee. For the past two seasons he has been not officiating in MLS since the league officials responsible for officiating did not select him for their own reasons. So despite the fact that he is an international referee and once used regularly by concacaf (did a gold cup final with vergara) he doesn't even do the top league in Canada/US anymore.

By your logic we shouldn't write critiques of players on this forum because we have never played professionally and don't hold coaching licences. I guess I shouldn't criticize government economic policy because I have never been a politician and am not an economist. Yes experts opinions are valuable but also contain a lot of bias due to personal relationships, political influence and adherence to certain schools of thought. I think the World Cup had such poor referreeing not because there are not enough top level refs in the world but because the assessment process used by FIFA is extremely flawed and political. I am highly doubtful that the referree assessment process is better here, certainly the results do not support this. Indeed my comment that the reffing in Canada needs to improve is not pointless because you would have to not be watching any Canadian soccer games to not see that the level of officiating is well below the level of even most mid-level soccer nations. Just because a nation may have had one ref who had a poor performance in the World Cup doesn't mean that the general level of reffing in that country is not much higher than in Canada. I am not particularly impressed by US or MLS refs but still they are in general better than those in Canada. As for Navarro, who knows what the reasons were he isn't doing MLS games. There are some threads on the net from his MLS times that are critical of his reffing in MLS. I didn't see those games so I can't comment but the ones I have seen him ref he did a good job. Maybe the next game I see him do he will be poor and if so I will review him accordingly.

I am tired of going to match after match with poor reffing. If you go to 4 Impact matches on average you get 1 well reffed game, 1 mediocre reffed game and two terribly reffed games. Yes part of the reason the reffing is bad is our refs need more high level match experience and this will take a while to develop. Another reason is that the process of selecting refs in the country is extremely political and the assessment procedure doesn't seem to be working properly. Yes my reviews will be biased just like those of any other poster here and the CSA referree assessors. That is why I am hoping others will also review the refs in different or the same games as me.

Reffing is a public job and public criticism is something that goes along with that. The Canadian reffing system needs to be held accountable and this thread will hopefully be one small measure that will contribute to increased accountability.

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Difference between Collina and Archundia?

In FIFA assessor minds it seems there is very little difference as Archundia is a top 3- 5 FIFA ref.

My point isn't to bash the fans, but from my experience players and fans have often a lesser knowledge of the law of the game than refs. This is why I'm not too sure of what to make of this kind of thread.

Like someone else said, the BS forum is probably the best place to have an objective assessment of a ref performance.

Surprised by that assessment too. I have one terrible error by Archundia in my head, which we all do, though it would have meant overruling his linesman, which he decided not to do. Other than that he was good at the WC and I have seen other matches where I would rate him competent.

As for Collina, I also can assess him on the basis of a terrible non-call that knocked Barça out of the Champions League vs. Chelsea in the round of 16 in March 2005. Carvalho in offside position clearly fouls Valdes in the box and Terry scores, the difference between one team going through and another. Even the Italian press, Corriere, La Republicca, crucified Collina for that error, which was decisive.

My opinion of Collina was that he was passive, political, and made arbitrary decisions that he got away with because of his character and being protected by UEFA. But to be fair I am not sure he was any worse--and certainly not any better--than Archundia is now in overall terms.

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Surprised by that assessment too. I have one terrible error by Archundia in my head, which we all do, though it would have meant overruling his linesman, which he decided not to do. Other than that he was good at the WC and I have seen other matches where I would rate him competent.

As for Collina, I also can assess him on the basis of a terrible non-call that knocked Barça out of the Champions League vs. Chelsea in the round of 16 in March 2005. Carvalho in offside position clearly fouls Valdes in the box and Terry scores, the difference between one team going through and another. Even the Italian press, Corriere, La Republicca, crucified Collina for that error, which was decisive.

My opinion of Collina was that he was passive, political, and made arbitrary decisions that he got away with because of his character and being protected by UEFA. But to be fair I am not sure he was any worse--and certainly not any better--than Archundia is now in overall terms.

The only real Archundia bad game was the one in Edmonton against Honduras in 2004. The 2007 GC is an AR mistake and no way Archundia was in position to overrule his AR.

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Maybe we should limit ourselves to evaluating refs the way we do players. Start at 5 and go up/down in half point increments. Ref does a great game he gets a 7 or 7.5 and if they miss calls or call PKs on obvious dives 3 etc.

Comments would be done to explain why we rate them at that level. I personally will have to abstain. Once a ref makes a bad call/non-call especially in an important game I'm biased bigtime and it would take a near perfect game to get me back to even a grudging 6.

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I am tired of going to match after match with poor reffing. If you go to 4 Impact matches on average you get 1 well reffed game, 1 mediocre reffed game and two terribly reffed games. Yes part of the reason the reffing is bad is our refs need more high level match experience and this will take a while to develop. Another reason is that the process of selecting refs in the country is extremely political and the assessment procedure doesn't seem to be working properly. Yes my reviews will be biased just like those of any other poster here and the CSA referree assessors. That is why I am hoping others will also review the refs in different or the same games as me.

Unless you go to a 4 impact games and they win all four you could say the same about players...played one good game and mediocre and two poorly...it is all a subjective opinion based on your expectations. If you are not involved with a referee program your expectations will be much different that assessors, league officials etc. I can state for a fact that FIFA instructions/expectations are different that those of the CSA, MLS and even concacaf to a certain degree. You are correct that our match officials need more big game experience but over the past years and in the future that is set to increase. With 3 canadian MLS teams and future expansion into the second division for other canadian cities...national list officials will get more games...add in superliga and concacaf champions league games on top of WCQ, canadian officials may be able to get more appointments.

Are you aware of the procedure for selecting national list officials? if not, I will give you a brief description. Referees who reach the provincial level within their province (the ones doing the highest level amateur games within their province) are assessed by national and provincial assessors throughout the season. They must be a provincial referee for a minimum of two years and successfully pass their assessments and full FIFA fitness tests throughout that time. At that point Provincial referee development committees evaluate their officials and nominate the given referee to the national list. The referee must provide the CSA with their complete resume including fitness test results, assessments and a break down of the competitions they have officiated at. At that point the CSA referee committee decides which nominations are accepted and then invites those referees to attend the U-18 Club national championships where they are evaluated in each match of the competition. After the tournament, the CSA referee committee has a meeting and goes over the performances of these officials and basically choses whether they become a national referee for the following year and place them either as middle referees or ARs. Additionally, those referees that are already on the national list are reviewed annually and if someone has not performed (based on assessment marks received) they can be removed from the national list. As with everything in canadian soccer they may be some political aspect but to say that the system is not working is not correct. Just like with players, sometimes we get someone on the national teams and people question their inclusion...it is the same with referees.

The CSA annually submits its nominations to FIFA for their list of international officials who either get approved or rejected. As I said before, in terms of referees chosen to referee in certain leagues...the league has a say in that.

Constructive analysis of a referee performance would be interesting in a thread but we must be careful not to attack a referee just because a call went against our team. Archundia may have blown two calls against canada but in reality over the last two world cups he was one of the best at those tournaments and that is proven by the fact he has done 8 middles in the world cup tying the record for middle referees. Even the best officials can have bad games including collina and even howard webb (had a great WC until the final).

I hope the moderators take this thread and place it into a new category...perhaps other CSA Discussions....open a referee thread and separate it into discussion on referees/referee performances for various competitions like NASL, MLS, Concacaf Competitions etc.... It just doesn't belong in the section we use for MNT

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I for one find this thread useful. I'm curious as to what kind of referee pool we have (I honestly couldn't name a Canadian ref before this thread). As was said, I'm sure we will find an aggregate of opinion here. Sure some people don't know the rules as well as the refs, but it will average out. Thus far I've found Grizzly's analysis to be fair and helpful.

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Unless you go to a 4 impact games and they win all four you could say the same about players...played one good game and mediocre and two poorly...it is all a subjective opinion based on your expectations.

If a team on average plays one good, one mediocre and two poor games, the fans will be upset, the media will write about the team's poor performance, the team will not make the playoffs and probably the coach will be fired. If a player on average plays one good, one mediocre and two poor games, the fans will be upset, the media will write about the his poor performance and he will likely be released (Roberto Brown being a recent example). This is not good performance whether you are a player, team or referree. In the case of the players and teams there is much public discussion and demand for improved performance but for refs in this country there is not unlike in many other countries where the reffing also happens to be superior to ours (Kicker for example who we often quote our player ratings of in Germany also rates the ref and gives a summary of his performance). This thread is an attempt to rectify that at least in a small way.

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I for one find this thread useful. I'm curious as to what kind of referee pool we have (I honestly couldn't name a Canadian ref before this thread). As was said, I'm sure we will find an aggregate of opinion here. Sure some people don't know the rules as well as the refs, but it will average out. Thus far I've found Grizzly's analysis to be fair and helpful.

The problem isn't with fairness it's the credentials. Sadly, often assessing players performances is easier then assessing a ref performance. Why? Because we all know what to expect from players but we often don't know enough about the rules, fifa interpretations and assessor demands to offer a quality analysis of a ref performance IMO.

I think the best example I have is this thread (2009 USL final between MTL and Vancouver):

http://www.cansoc.org/showthread.php?38352-USL1-Final-match-(R)

http://www.cansoc.org/showthread.php?38365-You-be-the-judge

The call we are talking about is the RC on Pejic. Here, on this forum we have plenty of people saying it's a bad call, it's a ref mistake, puuuur ref, etc. Then, when you post the video of the litiguous play on a ref forum with some experienced referees, everyone agrees it's DOGSO. No debate, nothing really except for someone who confused a USSF directive.

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1209267

It just shows you that sometime we, as fans, don't have the reflex to identify why a ref took a certain action. That's why I wouldn't trust this kind of thread to be of any help to refs.

Unless we have someone with a proven track record as a ref or ref assessor to moderate that kind of thread, I think this kind of thread will just be a place to bash refs for the fans. I would like to be proven wrong though!

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^^ First of all I disagree that it is easier to assess players than refs but in the interest of brevity lets skip that topic. I find it frankly ridiculous that you are demanding credentials for discussing and assessing refs on a FAN FORUM. We are not taking over the official referree assessments of the CSA. Pretty much everyone here lacks the professional credentials to discuss almost every topic on this forum which is why it is a fan forum. We are knowledgeable amateurs who nevertheless have many valid opinions about the subjects we discuss.

You try and prove your point by linking to a thread in which a poster complains about a call based on an erroneous interpretation of the rules, some people agree with him, it is discussed and finally the correct application of the rules is pointed out. This seems exactly why we should discuss reffing on the forum plus I think a lot of people learned something from this discussion. Additionally, despite the ref being correct in this instance, both games of the USL all-Canadian final were poorly reffed which is not an acceptable situation.

Both you and dpetzz point to the BigSoccer reffing subforum as a good source for reffing information. I have read it at times in the past and it is a pretty good forum though it also contains inaccurate opinions and disagreements even among experts like any forum. Regardless, to a large extent it is a forum for Americans to discuss American referrees combined with discussion of the reffing of various mostly prominent international leagues with more international posters. Canadian content is very low. I want to talk about Canadian referrees with Canadian fans and that is why I started this thread on the Voyageurs. Every country that I have been to that has good referreeing has many forums where the decisions of various refs are discussed and fans go to most games knowing who the ref is and what type of ref he is. That is one of many reasons that these countries have better reffing than us.

I would be happy if some qualified refs posted here like they do on BigSoccer. How exactly are we going to attract people like this if we don't have a thread or better yet a sub-forum about reffing? (I agree this thread is hard to place properly since it talks about three competitions that have separate sub-forums) Regardless I fully intend to keep posting this thread and hope others will also post their reffing assessments. The thread is supposed to be an easy resource to read about reffing and has been mostly hijacked by the topic of whether we should have the thread or not. If you are against the thread you are not compelled to read or post in it.

Hopefully someone from Vancouver can post a review of the ref of tonight's Caps match.

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