A statement from the Referees Appointment Secretary

REFEREE`S

Currently the Heck Foods Harrogate & District Association Football League has a shortage of referees, meaning that there WILL be matches scheduled to take place where we are unable to provide a Referee. We appreciate that this is not a desirable situation, but it is one that is unavoidable. Rest assured that we are trying to recruit more referees, however this is proving difficult.

If you know of a local Referee who may be able to help out the League, even if its only for 1 game every so often, please ask them to contact Rich Haslam, the Leagues Referee Appointment Secretary.

Is there anyone in your club, who may possibly be at the end of their playing days, who wants to take up refereeing, courses are normally run at County, although if there is sufficient interest, they would be prepared to arrange one elsewhere. Cost is about £80.

What should you do, when your match has no referee appointed (note I said `when` not `if`).

Firstly, there is little point badgering the Appointment Sec, IF he finds you a referee, he WILL immediately let your Secretary know.

After that, if you can find a local qualified, registered referee, brilliant! If you do, you MUST let the Appointment Secretary know, so he doesn't appoint someone who he may have found, to your game. This will be embarrassing and costly for you the club, as a referee appointed by the League is the official ref for that game, not one you may have found, so again, if you find your own referee, let the Appointment Secretary know.

Should no referee be available at all, the game should still go ahead, not having a qualified referee is NOT a reason to call a match off. The following rule from the HADAFL rules is one that is covered in the FA Standard Code Of Rules, ie one we get no choice about, it is an FA rule :

Rule 13 (B) In the event of the non-appearance of the appointed Referee the appointed senior Assistant Referee shall take charge and a substitute Assistant Referee appointed by the competing Teams. In cases where there are no officially appointed Assistant Referees, the Clubs shall agree upon a Referee. An individual thus agreed upon shall, for that game, have the full powers, status, and authority of a registered Referee. Individuals under the age of 16 must not participate either as a Referee or Assistant Referee in any open age Competition.

RESPECT

One of the key reasons why we are short of qualified referees is the lack of RESPECT shown to them. Referees do not turn up on a Saturday afternoon just to be abused by the players, over the last 2 years I know that we have lost a number of experienced referees as a result of the poor behaviour and attitude from players AND management of teams, so imagine how newly qualified referees feel when confronted by this sort of behaviour. We need to help and support our officials or we will loose more. Its your game and I know that you all want a qualified Referee, so please show more RESPECT towards the man in black.

Already this season I have had reports of a lack of RESPECT shown by clubs towards officials, OK we dont expect that you will agree with every decision a Referee makes, but they have made an honest call and that decision should be accepted, they are NOT going to change it and by protesting too much it will only cost you the players and clubs more money! When it comes to appointing referees to games, this could be one area that I will consider, do you deserve a referee?

Thank you for reading this quite lengthy statement, please pass it on to your team managers and ask that the RESPECT mantra be passed onto your players.

Again, if you know of any referees who may be willing to help the HADAFL out anytime, please ask them to contact me.

Rich Haslam

Harrogate & District AFL
Referee`s Appointments Secretary