The Ref Stop

Dissent tolerance levels

El__Juez__

New Member
Level 7 Referee
I believe my tolerance levels for dissent are too high. I'm therefore re-evaluating.

Give me an example of an incident that led to you sin binning/ cautioning for dissent.
 
The Ref Stop
I believe my tolerance levels for dissent are too high. I'm therefore re-evaluating.

Give me an example of an incident that led to you sin binning/ cautioning for dissent.

The main ones for me are things that are public/obvious. By word OR action. Slamming the ball down. Could be a warning, or straight to a sin bin if you've already started the stepped approach. Screaming/shouting at me from a distance, loud, possibly swearing. Likely to be a yellow as it may not reach OFFINABUS for me. Depending what's said.

Something said quieter at close range is going to be a warning/use captain, unless it's OFFINABUS whereby I don't care if I'm the only one who's heard it.
 
If a player comes up to the ref, politely disagrees and attempts to explain why the decision was wrong and hence change his mind, is that still an offense?
 
If a player comes up to the ref, politely disagrees and attempts to explain why the decision was wrong and hence change his mind, is that still an offense?
No. But I will politely tell them I am the ref and I make the decisions, not them. Some may think this is still dissent but I think it would have to be constant for me to get to this point.
 
There are so many factors.

The easy ones are when players loudly lay into you personally.

Other easy ones are where they call you incompetent, implying you can't referee the game or insult you.

Where it gets hard is when they imply the above. Now sin bin in my experience is best when it comes with no surprises. If a player is doing the whole low level dissent thing. Think about them saying "ref do your job" "ref in the back" "this ref is giving us nothing".

When the game stops either publicly or one on one (maybe with captain) tell them the constant dissent has reached your sin bin level and if you have to have this conversation again you may take action.

I've been trying this my last 5/10 games and it feels quite good.

Talk with them and just remind them you're capable of taking action.
 
No. But I will politely tell them I am the ref and I make the decisions, not them. Some may think this is still dissent but I think it would have to be constant for me to get to this point.
ok cool. Now, let's consider the scenario where our hypothetical polite player happens to be right. Shouldn't the ref then change his mind, or at least review the incident on the monitor?
 
If a player comes up to the ref, politely disagrees and attempts to explain why the decision was wrong and hence change his mind, is that still an offense?
No, in reality we should be open to communicate when it's in the right way.
ok cool. Now, let's consider the scenario where our hypothetical polite player happens to be right. Shouldn't the ref then change his mind, or at least review the incident on the monitor?
This is a confusing statement in the contact of the thread.
 
Sorry, I don't see where it's confusing. Not sure how to clarify it further.
Well, 99.9999% of referees don't have a monitor to review it on. Then to answer the actual question, if the referee realises their decision is wrong, there is nothing stopping them from changing it. But if we do so just because a player pointed out a mistake to us, it could well become a free-for-all and therefore, most refs wouldn't change their mind.
 
ok cool. Now, let's consider the scenario where our hypothetical polite player happens to be right. Shouldn't the ref then change his mind, or at least review the incident on the monitor?
Of course not. At levels with VAR there is a dedicated person to review decisions, that isn't a player, it is the VAR team. At levels without VAR referees are not allowed to use any kind of technology, doesn't matter if someone has filmed it showing you've dropped a clanger, you can't change your decision based on that.

When I played I was usually the captain and I would be the referee's best friend on the pitch. I'd keep my players away from him, tell him he was doing well, agree with small decisions, etc. Then when there was a big call like a potential red card I'd be right on top of him, not in an aggressive way, rather trying to sway his decision on play on the fact I'd been praising him to date. That wasn't because I was right, it was because I was trying to benefit my own team. There are captains like this in the pro game, Tripper springs to mind.
 
I believe my tolerance levels for dissent are too high. I'm therefore re-evaluating.

Give me an example of an incident that led to you sin binning/ cautioning for dissent.
Had one yesterday. Adults game, and didn't award a penalty and the play went out for a corner. The team then scores from the corner and CF comes right up to my face to celebrate. Could have red-carded him, but what he was saying wasn't in English, so may have been a compliment! but definite dissent, 10min sin bin.
 
My tolerance levels change for open age and younger matches. Open age it's much as has already been described, but for younger (I tend to do u14s), as soon as I start to be questioned or players start asking for decisions I very loudly tell the player (so that all can hear) that they do not need to help me. Maybe do this once or twice, then sin bin. I'm very much of the opinion that kids need to be taught that you don't carry on like the players on tele.
 
Well, 99.9999% of referees don't have a monitor to review it on. Then to answer the actual question, if the referee realises their decision is wrong, there is nothing stopping them from changing it. But if we do so just because a player pointed out a mistake to us, it could well become a free-for-all and therefore, most refs wouldn't change their mind.
Ok, I was referring to where they do have a monitor such as in PL or CL games. If there's no other way to double check, then of course, you can't just go by what the player's claiming and I wasn't suggesting that.

Of course not. At levels with VAR there is a dedicated person to review decisions, that isn't a player, it is the VAR team. At levels without VAR referees are not allowed to use any kind of technology, doesn't matter if someone has filmed it showing you've dropped a clanger, you can't change your decision based on that.

When I played I was usually the captain and I would be the referee's best friend on the pitch. I'd keep my players away from him, tell him he was doing well, agree with small decisions, etc. Then when there was a big call like a potential red card I'd be right on top of him, not in an aggressive way, rather trying to sway his decision on play on the fact I'd been praising him to date. That wasn't because I was right, it was because I was trying to benefit my own team. There are captains like this in the pro game, Tripper springs to mind.
Ok, so where there's VAR, which is the scenario I was thinking of, then it's always referred to the VAR team who might then suggest checking the monitor. Seems a good protocol to me. I know that the final decision always rests with the on-field ref as VAR isn't there to re-ref decisions, but just to clarify the evidence and perhaps recommend an action. That's been pointed out many times in PL games.

Did you see that program on TNT Sports a while back where they showed the inner workings of the VAR team? Interesting and showed the kind of pressure that they're under. It was all very technical, which I liked very much. I just love what benefits technology brings to modern life and this is one of them.

Nice bit of psychology there, I like it. 😉 I wonder how aware refs are of being manipulated like this.
 
It's true. I know this sounds a bit cliche but I got sent off twice in 4 weeks for calling the same ref a w****r in both games. After the 2nd he told me to take it up if I thought it was so easy. I wanted to do it anyway so decided I would. The rest, as they say, is history 🤣
And did you get proved right...that it was easy? ;)
 
Sorry, I don't see where it's confusing. Not sure how to clarify it further.
I didn't understand why you randomly brought VAR into a thread from a level 7 referee asking about dissent.
In the context of the opening post and following discussion it was confusing.

Dissent tolerance can often be mistaken as a reason for simply not dealing with dissent. That's the best advice I can give you. If you have got a player constantly questioning decisions, ask him to stop, tell him to stop, publicly warn him and then when he does it again caution/sin bin.

Even better when you have standout behaviour you can deal with. @wazztie16 gives a great example, slamming the ball down although I'd argue this falls into the obvious category and can be dealt with with no management.

Action is much easier to deal with than words as often action is seen by everyone, sometimes only you and the player know what was said and that's harder to sell from an optics point of view. Words of disagreement are manageable using the Stepped approach, big clear actions (slamming the ball, excessive waving of the arms in dissent, booting the ball away to show dissent) are easy sell to move straight to caution/sinbin depending on where you are and your level
 
I didn't understand why you randomly brought VAR into a thread from a level 7 referee asking about dissent.
In the context of the opening post and following discussion it was confusing.

Dissent tolerance can often be mistaken as a reason for simply not dealing with dissent. That's the best advice I can give you. If you have got a player constantly questioning decisions, ask him to stop, tell him to stop, publicly warn him and then when he does it again caution/sin bin.

Even better when you have standout behaviour you can deal with. @wazztie16 gives a great example, slamming the ball down although I'd argue this falls into the obvious category and can be dealt with with no management.

Action is much easier to deal with than words as often action is seen by everyone, sometimes only you and the player know what was said and that's harder to sell from an optics point of view. Words of disagreement are manageable using the Stepped approach, big clear actions (slamming the ball, excessive waving of the arms in dissent, booting the ball away to show dissent) are easy sell to move straight to caution/sinbin depending on where you are and your level

To clarify, slamming the ball down and it going very high, would be straight to a sin bin.

Slamming it down and it going a couple of feet, although unlikely, could be managed, imo. Most likely straight to bringing the skipper in.
 
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