I’ve seen parents get ordered to their car multiple times. This is in Colorado. Parents also get red cards.

I've seen clubs that will bench players if parents get out of control at the sidelines. Parents can cheer positive comments to their kids all day long, scream them even. But no saying anything negative about the players on the other team or the refs.

And I asked a parent: he said the policy was absolutely enforced and cited examples.

Refs should not be harassed, period. Letting them know a player is hurt is fine. Anything else is crap. If they call a bad game, let the coaches deal with it through the appropriate channel.

Anonymous wrote:There are many times when I think it is appropriate to “yell”.

A player is injured and ref is oblivious.

A player is offsides and ref/linespeople are oblivious.

Ref is not calling obvious fouls. Many times I have seen this deteriorate quickly.

The ref has a responsibility to officiate the game correctly. Soccer has rules for a reason.

Injured player yes. The rest no.

Anonymous wrote:There are many times when I think it is appropriate to “yell”.

A player is injured and ref is oblivious.

A player is offsides and ref/linespeople are oblivious.

Ref is not calling obvious fouls. Many times I have seen this deteriorate quickly.

The ref has a responsibility to officiate the game correctly. Soccer has rules for a reason.

So you, a person yelling, gets to determine an offsides, and not the official? Injured player makes sense

My issue is with refs that don’t call fouls and the game gets out of control. I see that happen way to often. If ref isn’t controlling the game and the risk of injury is increasing you bet I’m saying something

There are many times when I think it is appropriate to “yell”.

A player is injured and ref is oblivious.

A player is offsides and ref/linespeople are oblivious.

Ref is not calling obvious fouls. Many times I have seen this deteriorate quickly.

The ref has a responsibility to officiate the game correctly. Soccer has rules for a reason.

People just need to realize that for the next 90 minutes, you are under the referee’s dictatorship and there is nothing you can do about it except be an a-hole. You won’t get them to change their mind or reverse a call, and if you do, you’re an a-hole. Focus instead on how your team could be doing better so that calls aren’t a factor, play to the whistle, respect the decisions, and shake their hands after the game. You can question calls or ask for an explanation, just don’t be an a-hole.

To have a policy or even think we need basic guidelines is ridiculous. Yell, scream, get excited.......guess what, you can still be respectful at the same time.

Would I support a zero tolerance policy on referee harassment?
Sure!
Do I think the policy the OP found makes sense?
No.

Look, believe me, nobody is against ref harassment more than I am. I've been doing this a long time, and parents are getting worse and worse, and players, especially younger ones, and aping their parents behavior.

But we have to use common sense. We don't need to kick out a parent that disagrees with a call, and yells out "no way!" At least he first time.
And we don't need to kick out coaches the first time they complain either.

There are some better things to do. FIFA is close to allowing refs to card coaches as we card players. It's a much clearer and simpler way to address coach behavior. Right now, coaches know that they can lean on a ref all game, and they may get warned, but that really means nothing. Especially with younger refs, they're far more comfortable pulling out and showing a coach a card than they are going over to tell the coach to stop. A coach that gets a YC knows exactly what it means. Some tournaments allow this already, but most don't.

As for parents, it's a lot more challenging. I have a much lower threshold for considering parents out of line than I do a coach. A quick spontaneous complaint...fine. Things I won't accept, and give one, and only one warning...anything that's a personal insult, anything implying a lack of fairness, and, now more than every, any parents encouraging their kids to me more physical towards opponents.

In the end, as a parent you need to choose your battles. Don't complain about a meaningless throw in (an they're all meaningless). Don't complain about an offside call. If it's three refs, the AR has a MUCH better view than you do, and if it's one ref, accept that they're guessing on all offside calls and let it go.
And never, never approach a ref to complain at half time or after a game. If you respectfully want a call explained, fine, but believe me, I can tell from 30 yards away if you have good intentions or not.

So yes, harassment should be out of the game. But there are enough gray areas that I don't think we need such a firm black and white policy.

There's a long way from one comment by a kid in the heat the moment questioning a call to "referee harassment." And I don't think that disputing calls should be cause for ejection while other, worse violations (like often intentional fouls) are only cause for a yellow card.

Yeah, I agree with 11:25. I think a coach should be allowed to question a bad call. We didn't get a goal once because it definitely crossed the goal line (and stayed in) but for some reason the ref didn't see it. We saw it because we were all at that end of the field. We lost that game, and we were kind of pissed off because it should have been a tie game.

We gave back a goal at a tournament the other day because the player that scored was off-sides right before she scored and the ref didn't catch it. We told him.

I agree with everything except the dispute of a call by a coach. A coach should be able to address a "question or comment with particular calls" during the moment.

Referee abuse is absolutely inappropriate and shouldn't be tolerated, but I think what you're proposing is maybe little too far. We had a situation this season where a ref initially called no goal on what was definitely a goal against our team, because he was screened when the shot was made and when he finally saw the ball, it was outside the net and looked like it had gone wide because the ball had gone through a hole in the side of the net. In response to the no goal call, two of our parents on the sidelines called to the ref that it had gone out through a hole and actually was a goal. When the ref dismissed it, a different one of our parents walked down to the other team's parents on the sideline and said we all knew it was a bad call and we're sorry their kids weren't getting credit for that goal. Our parents were trying to be good sports (and no one yelled at the ref), should they get kicked out of a game for it?

I've seen these guidelines with other clubs but I don't think any clubs or leagues in the DC area follow this approach, at least from what I've seen, and certainly not at the Bethesda tournament this weekend.

Basically, coaches, players and spectators have to be 100% silent when it comes to calls by the officials. Something like this which I found another club has written into their rule books:

1) ABSOLUTELY no disputing calls during or after the game. NO YELLING at the referee, EVER, and no criticism, sarcasm, harassment, intimidation, or feedback of any kind during or after the game

2) Violators may be ejected and subjected to disciplinary action by the league board.

3) If coaches or spectators have questions or comments with particular calls, rules or wish to give feedback regarding a referee, contact the referee coordinator via the website.

Think it would fly here?