Referees: The most under-appreciated members of the footballing fraternity

Referees have a tough job and yet don’t get the credit they deserve

What would you end up doing if you had only Rs 100 on you? Have 8 Vada pav’s? Have 20 cups of cutting tea? Or travel in a cab from Byculla to Colaba? I guess none of the above. You can use them to buy one kg of tomatoes these days. You may wonder why I asked you about Rs. 100? It is because that is the amount a match official gets paid per game at school level! Yes, only Rs 100.

Our professor in college always told us, “Journalism can only be learnt when you step onto the field and not through books.” So as a part of our college assignment, we set off to Cooperage football grounds to cover the Mumbai School Sports Association (MSSA) U-16 final match between Bombay Scottish and St. Lawrence School.

Reporting for the match was a common task so we were asked to take various aspects of the game as our angle. When I walked into the ground I saw the linesman doing his job. I decided to base my story on him. Before the match commenced I had a word with him requesting him to meet me post the game for a chat. He was kind enough to agree to talk to a rookie like me. My initial angle was only to project how thankless their job was. What followed left me in shock as well as in shame.

After the game I managed to catch up with the three match officials and asked them about how it felt being a linesman in a sport that is not very glorified in India. “The generation has changed young man. We are not linesmen anymore. People call us Assistant Referees.” one of them told me. I would not like to name the officials as secrecy would be ideal in such a case.

I broached the subject of them being in a thankless job. They admitted to this fact but also mentioned that they loved the game to such an extent that they did not mind not being thanked for the duties they discharged. During the course of the chat they also mentioned that their training is of an extremely high intensity and it is only after clearing these tests that they are allowed to officiate in these games. They also agreed to the fact that they ran more than the players during the 90 minutes and also joked that they cannot be substituted if they are tired.

It is a true fact that they do not get the respect that they deserve. Football has a decent following among the youth of the country. People remember the names of players, goal scorers and to a certain extent even managers and coaches. But no one remembers who was the match official and who were his assistants. One quote from the official brought out the harsh reality of the treatment meted out to them. He said “When a team wins, it’s their calibre, when a team loses; it’s the referee’s fault.”

I would like to add that before the final commenced, the three officials were also officiating the Division II final played earlier in the day. So they were running for almost three hours at a stretch from one end of the ground to another. The reward for their effort? Rs 100.

I was appalled at hearing the same and could hardly muster courage to ask them how did they make ends meet. To my relief, one worked at the naval dockyard, one had a travel agency while the other was a cop with the Maharashtra Police. They were doing this only and only out of love for the game.

I once heard the legendary Kadar Khan say in an interview. “Har koi agar actor banega to writer kaun banega, director kaun banega.” Similarly, if everyone wants to be a player, who would want to be an official with such appalling pay.

Football may not be a glorified sport in the country, especially at the school level. But the administration has ashamed all of us by paying the heart of the game a measly sum of Rs 100. But they can be proud of the fact that they are better than Raj Babbar or Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who said that we can survive on Rs 12 and Rs 28. Compared to that, Rs.100 is a huge sum.

While the day was drawing to a close, when we were figuring out as to where do we head for a snack and the school teams were busy celebrating their achievement on the field, the three officials, just like every unsung hero, walked into the sunset with their envelope that may have contained Rs 100 as a reward for their services.