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Welcome to PYSC!
Greetings from Fevri Pazari - Club Head Referee
Thank you for working for PYSC. This is thanks to the fact that you are
a registered referee in good standing with OSA. Your services will be
required only after you have renewed your membership with OSA and
attended one of the mandatory refreshing clinics. Those of you who
became referees for the first time this year are automatically
registered with OSA, and are not required to attend any refreshing
clinics. Starting from next year, you will need to renew your
membership and attend the mandatory refreshing clinic, just like
everybody else.
As a referee, you do not pay a membership fee to PYSC and you do not
pay any fee for the games that are assigned to you. Therefore, your
expectations from the club should be reasonable, since the club
doesn’t owe you any games, although your services are kindly
appreciated. You will get as many games as possible, based on the
number of the games, number of the referees, your availability and
qualifications. We try to be as fair as possible. We expect you to be
very professional, keep up-to-date with FIFA and our club’s rules
and regulations, try to keep a reasonable fitness level, be presentable
and punctual, show respect for your colleagues, be communicative with
the coaches, players and spectators.
Our games are every day from Monday to Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Our
tournament is in June and the playoffs are in September. There may be
some schedule modifications of time and/or location of our games. Check
the schedule!
Your duty starts the moment that you accept the game. You should make a
note to remind yourself of the assignment: date, time, location,
division, teams, or just print out the email that I sent you when I
assigned you the game. You are required to be on the field 15 minutes
prior to the game. Once you are there, you must check the field
conditions, the weather conditions and the players’ equipment: no
jewelry. Besides the official black referee’s shirt, bring a
spare yellow and/or red referee’s shirt with you, as required by
the rules in Ontario, in
case you need to switch colour if there is a conflict with the colour
of the teams you are refereeing. Also, make sure that players are not
wearing anything that is not part of the player’s equipment.
Please, make exceptions when it comes to health related, e.g., medical
bracelet, and religion related reasons.
Calling up player: Each coach who
can not field a full team, even though they have the required minimum
number of players, can call up players who are members of the club from
one age division lower, e.g., if the team is U18, the coach can call up
only U14 players. The coach must notify the ref before using a call up
player. Once the coach has the full team he/she can not field this
player anymore, not even as a substitute player. During the playoffs
there will be no call up players.
Trading player:
If a team can not come up with the minimum number of players, that team
will lose the game to other team, by default. In order to avoid this,
in sign of sportsmanship, in order to let the kids play and in order to
have an official game, the teams are allowed to trade players with the
opposition within the ten minute grace. Remember: this is not mandatory
and can not be enforced by the ref. It is done only with the consent of
the two coaches. If the game is defaulted, the teams can still hang
around the park for a practice or for a fun game. However, the ref
doesn’t have to. The ref is required to stay only if the game is
still official. If the game is defaulted, the ref may choose not to
stay for a just-for-fun game, due to liability issues and based on the
guidelines from the OSA, since the refs are insured only if the game is
official.
Grace time
is only 10 minutes from the kick off time. So, if the game is scheduled
to start at 6:30 p.m., but by 6:40 p.m. the teams still don’t
have the minimum number of players on the field for their age division,
and they fail to provide a call up player, and the coaches can not
convince each other to trade players, the ref will “call”
the game. If the coaches are able to have the minimum number of players
before the 10 minute grace time is over, then they will be allowed to
play. However, the ref’s watch has started at 6:30, no matter
what.
Game sheets:
It is in the best interest of the game, the coaches and yours that
everyone knows who is on the field. This has become even more important
with the calling up player and trading player rule. The referees have
been advised by ECOSA and OSA not to accept incomplete game sheets.
Therefore, it is in your best interest to get the game sheet (which is
the team list) from the coaches before the game starts. If the coaches
don’t have a game sheet, you can print out a template from our
website, called “Game Sheet”, and give it to them before
the game starts.
All mini soccer games, regardless of the length of the half times, have
a 20 minute break between halves. Many coaches, especially the youngest
divisions, want to have their practice during this time. Therefore,
make sure not to shorten the break time. The only exception is when
both coaches ask you to shorten the break for different reasons, such
as shortage of spare players, weather getting hotter, rain getting
heavier, etc. In very hot days the ref may be asked by the teams for a
water break. If that is the case, both coaches should agree that the
break is in the middle of each half time and they must tell the ref
before the game starts. During the water break the referee does not
stop the watch.
For most of the games, the kick off time is 6:30 p.m. If you are on the
field on time and you are ready, which means you have flipped the coin
and you have spoken to the captains, you start the watch at exactly
6:30, regardless of the fact that the teams may not be ready yet. The
teams may be ready only 7 minutes after 6:30. That is fine by us as
referees but you must advise them that you are already 7 minutes into
your first half of play. This means that they will have less play time
for their first half.
You may want to keep your linesman flags with you at all times, because
some of the coaches or spectators might want to volunteer to help you
running the line.
If you start the game with the minimum number of players on the field
and then, during the game that team loses one of its players due to
injury, red card ejection, etc., then you can not restart the game
before that team is able to provide a player to keep the minimum
required number of the players on the field. This can be arranged in
agreement between the two coaches of those teams (call up player,
trading player). If they fail to agree to share the players and one of
the teams does not have the minimum number of the players on the field,
then you must abandon the game due to this fact. However, you still
have to report to the statistician. You will say that at this certain
minute of the game I abandoned the game because one of the teams did
not have the minimum number of the players on the field anymore. You
indicate the team, the names and the final score up to the moment that
you abandoned the game.
Cancelled Games: Unless the
weather conditions are very severe and the games are announced to be
cancelled, you must be on the field. Unfortunately, lately we have had
a very unpredictable weather. Due to this, we as executives have not
been able to decide ahead of time if games are cancelled or not due to
the weather. In that case, you must follow the routine and check the
website or the radio. If you do not hear anything about cancellations
you MUST be on the field. If the weather conditions get worse by the
time that you get on the field (storm, heavy rain, thunder,
lightening), then you can make the decision on the field and you may
decide to abandon the game due to the weather. You will still get paid
for the game. Remember that you still have to phone the statistician.
Note: You do not have to
fill out a Special Incident Report (Blue Form), since the game did not
start at all.
Abandoned Games:
If, after the game has already started, you decide to terminate the
game, due to weather conditions or incidents on the field, you must
complete the Special Incident Report (Blue Form) and explain the
reasons why the game was terminated. This report should be sent to
Christine Orton and Margaret Thompson (please, refer to Article 12
– Referee Card Reporting). You still must phone the statistician
with this information.
In case of disagreement, do not confront the coaches. Record their
behaviour in writing and inform the club in writing. At the same time,
let me know about any incident. We will do anything to protect you.
Usually, the coaches are compliant. Some of them are referees
themselves. However, occasionally we deal with odd cases of
disrespectful behaviour towards the official. At the end of the game,
if you don’t feel comfortable to ask the coach about the MVP due
to their behaviour, then don’t. If they come to you and give you
the MVP, fine. If they talk about other issues that you don’t
want to discuss, then feel free to walk away, as long as you are able
to interpret this as a solution, not as an offensive gesture.
For the Ron Thompson Tournament and the Playoffs, we will have specific
rules which will be posted on the website. For all other information,
check the Referee’s Corner on our website.
Have a great season!
Fevri Pazari
Club Head Referee
Email: headref_pysc@sympatico.ca
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