Referee's decisions - A guide to know them before anyone else

I wrote yesterday about my meeting with an up and coming Fifa ref. Now the story continues…

Before and during my game with the Fifa ref, I had the chance to keep my ears and eyes wide open and listen to the things he told me. He gave me a nice insight in how the way top refs act and work together with their assistants. And how even the 4^th official is working together with the ref during a game.

And he gave me the story of the help Fifa refs have from technology.

The most used and oldest help they have is the buzzer. It is widespread by now and even in the lower leagues we have refs who have bought the buzzer flags to help them in the games. It is a rather simple device. The ref puts a band around his arm with the buzzer and the assistants have a flag with a button hidden in the handle. So when the assistant wants or has to make a signal when the ref is standing with his back towards the assistant, he can raise his flag and press the button.

And so the ref knows that one of the assistants is trying to get his attention. He can then look at the assistants and within a fraction of a second blow the whistle when it is needed. The most important use is when there is a fight behind the ref’s back. But it is also used when the assistant gives an offside when the player is coming back from an offside position and at first sight, there is nothing wrong when the player receives the ball.

In the old days, the ref had to look at the assistant to see if there was an offside but while doing that he could miss a foul right under his nose. Now the assistant just raises his flag and the ref knows that he has to make a (offside) decision and so it doesn’t matter if there is a foul or not. He can just give the offside decisions.

A rather more recent system is the communication device between the 4 (or 6) officials. All the refs and assistants are wired up with a system where they can talk with each other. For those who have seen the documentary ‘Kill the referee’, they have seen how the refs communicate with each other. It is definitely a very helpful system for the team of referees, but as always, there are still a few ifs and buts.

In my country, the top class referees get the help of such technology from our local FA. The cost for such a system is around 4,000,00 euro. The refs get it for free but if they lose it (or if it gets stolen – which has happened), they must pay that sum to our local FA. So the refs are very careful about it and handle it with care. And certainly, after it was stolen from one of the top refs, they know that our local FA means business by their ‘lose-it and to pay-for-it’ policy.

Another problem is that the technology does not really work in all circumstances. Sometimes the sound quality is bad. And in the big stadiums when there is a lot of noise, they sometimes cannot communicate in a proper way. Or worse, they can stop working. Sometimes, the battery can go flat. Last season our Fifa ref was doing a top game of the future champions. There was a counter-attack and a foul. But from his position he could not see if the foul happened inside or outside the area. Now before the communication device was used, the refs and assistants had a way to know if it was inside or outside the penalty area. They could communicate that without speaking. More on that how they did it later.

But when working with their ears for so long, they are used to just say to each other: “it was inside“ or “it was outside”. But at that game they had been having troubles before and during the game, and at the moment, the ref blew the whistle for the foul and then waited for the assistant to say in or outside but didn’t hear him.

He looked at the assistant and the assistant looked back at him. He saw the assistant saying something but the communication was lost. He could see his mouth opening and closing but no sound. Another desperate look and again the assistant said something. But with the whole stadium waiting for the decision the ref really didn’t know what the correct decision was. And so he just judged it as what he ‘thought’ it was.

But it took him so long before he could make the decision that it looked as if he didn’t know what he was doing and this is always a bad thing for the ref. At a moment like that, you want to throw away the communication device because it is not helpful at all. But most of the time it is rather helpful and a great way to make better decisions and to know what the ref or the assistant have seen. So the system is not really 100% at times but most of the times it works rather well.

To finish this article about the help they have from technology, I just want to explain how the refs and his assistants communicate without words or open signals in a case where the ref has seen the foul but doesn’t know if the foul was inside or outside the penalty area.

The assistant has to inform the ref about it without the communication device. And if you now go to a game where the ref doesn’t have these devices you can see yourself how it works.

So we have a counter after, let us say, a corner at the other end. The ref is running as fast as he can but as the striker is like Theo, as fast as lightning, so the ref has no chance to come closer. The striker is brought down just at the moment he is about to enter the penalty area. The assistant who is running at the same height as the striker and the defender can see if the foul is outside or inside. The ref sees the clear foul and blows the whistle. And then looks at the assistant who knows that from the moment the ref blows for the foul and makes eye contact with the ref.

If the ref himself makes the decision, he will just point straightaway to the penalty spot if he thought it was in or put up his arm in the air if he thought it was outside the penalty area.

But if the ref only blows and looks to the assistant, the assistant has to decide: in or out. If it was in, the assistant will run towards the goal line and place himself at the edge of the penalty area where he has to stand when a penalty is given. If he is sure it was just outside he will stop his run and walk a few steps back in the direction of the middle of the field. And then the ref knows what the decision should be. Unless you have been watching the assistant(and apart from myself and other refs, nobody notices the assistant at such a moment because the rest is looking at the ref, waiting for his decision), you don’t know how the decision was made.

Experienced assistants will still do it that way even when they can just say the words ‘in’ or ‘out’ into the communication device as they are used to doing it like that in the past. And if the assistant of our Fifa ref had been an older one, he surely would have done it that way to help the ref when he realized the contact was lost.

So the next time you go and see a game, you can check the assistant and tell other people around you what the ref will decide when there is such a decision to be made.

If you accompany this with a knowing nod and a slight chuckle combined with a know-it-all smile and a roll of the eyes you will either look like a total prat, or you will be seen as the smartest guy in the ground – knowing what the ref will do before everyone else.

Indeed, get it right three or four times in a row and you will have have the stand turning to look at you each time the whistle goes. Offers from broadcasting companies will follow within weeks.

By Walter Broeckx