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I’ve never had an abusive official, but I don’t mind the occasional biased one because the boys learn that sometimes they have to beat the other team AND the ref. If it impacts safety, e.g. allowing blatant cross checks/slashes that’s a different story.

I was referring to abuse in the context of allowing bias to cloud their judgment when it comes to the safety of the player.

The frustration that parents feel comes from the same referee showing up with a chip on their shoulder. The two that I am referring to in our area happen to be the head of their respective referee associations. No accountability seems to be in play because of their lofty position. Parents get frustrated because nothing seems to be done about these referees. They are told "well, it's really hard to find referee's so we just have to live with it". Parents feel there is no recourse or accountability.

This last weekend was a huge contrast in what I am talking about. We had a game Saturday (U14) and the referee that showed up had a "history" with our FORMER coach and it is well known that any team in our club that happens to get him as a referee, gets the "shaft". I'm not sure how anyone can make a statistical case as to why when he referee's our games (3 that I have personally witnessed in the past 2 years), we have calls go against us 90/10 (at best) and any other game it is the usual 50/50 or 60/40 at worst. Same team, different referee. During the game Saturday, a couple of times our players were "woozy" from illegal hits (forearms to the head, etc...) and no call. I had never seen such dirty play by another team but they figured out the bias and knew they could get away with it. Another time, one of our players made an unbelievable athletic move to pirouette midair to miss the keeper on a run at goal and the game was stopped and the player was lectured for 30-40 seconds by this guy. I could go on and on but I think you catch my drift about that game. The sad thing is that this "bad" ref supposedly does college and professional games so I am not questioning his ability, I am questioning his integrity.

Fast forward to Sundays match, our team was pretty battered and bruised from the day before and was playing a really good team. The referee was OUTSTANDING! It was like a breath of fresh air even though we lost the match.

What this past weekend showed me was how important it is to have good unbiased refereeing in order to have a fun and enjoyable game, win or lose.

If you ever want to hear a good one, I can tell you about the coach that was reported by a referee to the local league and was reprimanded by the local league board for BREAKING UP a fight in the parking lot between 2 parents.