A&H

Schedule clashes - etiquette?

D

dadofref

New Member
Hi,

Dad of a newly qualified 14yo ref here. He's had four games to ref over the past two weekends in a local girls league, including two with offsides, from U11 up to U13, and has been doing pretty well. This next weekend however he's been scheduled a match by another league that clashes with the ones the girls league has scheduled.

The girls league has scheduled him 3 back-to-back U10s and U11s games (without offsides); the other league (boys) has scheduled him an U12 game (with offsides) which clashes with the two later girls games.

The girls matches he's been notified about via an FA Full Time email yesterday; the boys match he's been notified by the coach of the home team today but the appointment has gone onto Full Time as well, but no email's gone out for some reason.

My thoughts objectively are that the U12 boys match would probably be better experience and another tick towards the "5 matches with offsides" goal to "qualify".

What's the etiquette here? I know there's appointment precedence when it comes to cup competitions, but is there any equivalent when it comes to leagues, e.g. the older team takes priority?

Obviously don't want him to annoy any league referee co-ordinators, but clearly he can't do all 4 matches - he can either do all 3 girls matches; or 1 girls match and the boys match; or - possibly? - 2 girls matches and the boys match if they agreed to delay the boys kick-off by 15 minutes...

Also, if it makes any difference (and for me it shouldn't because I think he's sensible enough not to let it affect him) - the boys match he's been assigned to happens to be his younger brother's team...

Thanks in advance for any advice!
 
The Referee Store
Chronology for me.
Whichever was given first should take precedence.
Easier to say, I can't do that because I am already appointed...

You need to work a strategy here where as soon as you get a game you close other potential appointments OR you open for one league one week and open for another the next.

Ref secs do thousands of reappointments and I can only stress how much easier their lives are made by good and proper admin
 
dadofref said:
Hi,

Dad of a newly qualified 14yo ref here. He's had four games to ref over the past two weekends in a local girls league, including two with offsides, from U11 up to U13, and has been doing pretty well. This next weekend however he's been scheduled a match by another league that clashes with the ones the girls league has scheduled.

The girls league has scheduled him 3 back-to-back U10s and U11s games (without offsides); the other league (boys) has scheduled him an U12 game (with offsides) which clashes with the two later girls games.

The girls matches he's been notified about via an FA Full Time email yesterday; the boys match he's been notified by the coach of the home team today but the appointment has gone onto Full Time as well, but no email's gone out for some reason.

My thoughts objectively are that the U12 boys match would probably be better experience and another tick towards the "5 matches with offsides" goal to "qualify".

What's the etiquette here? I know there's appointment precedence when it comes to cup competitions, but is there any equivalent when it comes to leagues, e.g. the older team takes priority?

Obviously don't want him to annoy any league referee co-ordinators, but clearly he can't do all 4 matches - he can either do all 3 girls matches; or 1 girls match and the boys match; or - possibly? - 2 girls matches and the boys match if they agreed to delay the boys kick-off by 15 minutes...

Also, if it makes any difference (and for me it shouldn't because I think he's sensible enough not to let it affect him) - the boys match he's been assigned to happens to be his younger brother's team...

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Click to expand...
The base questions are:
1. Has he registered with both leagues?
2. Has he offered open dates to one or both leagues? Has he closed any dates?
3. Once the girls' games were confirmed, did he close the date with the boys' league?
Each referee has to manage their own calendar, keeping leagues and CFA aware of any closed dates as soon as known.
There is no priority rule between youth leagues, so your son needs to discuss the immediate situation with both leagues, and then advise availability to both fir the remainder of 2022.
 
As a former referee appointment secretary (RAS). I have encountered this situation far too often. It is difficult for the new referee to understand or appreciate the challenges faced by a RAS. There is never enough referees and when there is, someone always has to go shopping/has a birthday/has a wedding/attend a party/set off on holiday/picks up an injury/gets called up to a higher ranking game meaning there is no longer enough referees.

Most referees are not professionals, most fulfil the role for pocket money or to give something back to the game. The problem is that clubs expect referees to behave like full time professionals.

That incudes not making themselves available for more than one game at the same time. Some RAS expect the new referee to be so well organised that they do not place themselves in a difficult situation.

This is my advice
  1. At his level, he should do games in the order in which they are allocated to him. If he is appointed to a game on a Saturday (that is the appointment arrives on Saturday, not when the game is being played) and then appointed to another one the next day (again the day when the appointment arrives, not when it is being played), the one from Saturday takes precedence.
  2. When he is appointed, he should contact the RAS from all other competitions and tell them he is no longer available on the day of the game to which he has been appointed, if they are due to kick off at the same time or overlap or don't allow enough time to travel from one game to another
  3. If he wants to do more than one game in a day, then he needs to make sure he can finish game one, travel to the next game, has a clean kit, doesn't pick up an injury and doesn't get held up in traffic but can still arrive about 20-30 minutes before kick off of the second game
  4. Games are not arranged for the convenience of the referee. There can be issues around competition rules, availability of fields, the facilities may be shared and another team due on the field, etc. Neither you nor he should consider asking a team to delay a kick off just to suit him, unless it's on the day of the game and there's been a delay in travel, e.g. unexpected heavy traffic
  5. If a game involves a family member (dad as coach or in your case, brother playing), then it should be avoided to sidestep accusations of bias and of course family fall outs if something goes against the player or the player's team (supposing he has to send off his brother???)
  6. At this stage of his career, I wouldn't worry about getting another game with offsides. From the tone of your post, it sounds like plenty of other opportunities are just around the corner and you are very supportive. Refereeing is a long term commitment if he wants to be successful or even just to get to a level where his name is in the paper and he picks up a nice pay packet each Saturday. He has plenty of time
Hope this helps
 
Last edited:
Fantastic, thanks for the excellent advice all, really appreciate it, and having done thankless admin tasks myself in other sports before, wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing.

Will advise him to:
  • contact the boys league's RAS
  • apologise and say that he can't do the fixture...
  • ...because he's got another already scheduled
  • and apologise for not contacting the RAS as soon as he knew he'd been scheduled matches in the girls league, and will make sure he does in the future
  • also point out that he would have been refereeing his brother's team and ask to avoid them in the future
The girls games he's been scheduled are all on the same pitch one after the other, so no logistical issues there - however as it happens his brother's team play a couple of pitches over on an adjacent site, so if it wasn't for timings (and it being his brother) there wouldn't have been logistical issues. As it happens it's very handy for me either way as I can drive to one location and park up, he can ref for the girls, I can watch a fair proportion of his games with a brew and bacon butty, and then I can watch his brother play - win-win!

I did think rescheduling around his availability wasn't likely to be a thing, but do know that that specific league's rules permit some flexibility on start times, and that there's no games on afterwards (I'll likely end up being one of the parents putting the goals and respect barriers away 🤣) which is why I floated it as a question.

If he's ever asked to do multiple games in different locations on the same day, I'd obviously work with him to see if the logistics would work, especially as he's reliant on me and his mum as taxi!
 
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