If You Yell at Referees, You're Making It Worse for the Rest of Us
I want to talk about referees.
Not in the way you're probably thinking. I'm not here to list every bad call I've ever seen or build a case against referees in general. My starting position is actually this: I don't care about the referee. And I mean that in the most respectful way possible.
What I mean is — I know the referee is not there to spite my team. They're not trying to make us lose, they're not trying to endanger my players. They showed up on a Sunday, probably for the fifth or sixth game of the day, to do a job. That's it. So I go into every game with a certain peace about the referee, because I've already accepted that whatever happens, they're doing their best and I'm not going to change the decision.
That said. Last weekend, two things happened.
Incident One: The Finger
I had a player arriving late. Before kickoff, I'd already told the referee — hey, I've got a player coming, he'll be here. No problem.
The player arrived. He warmed up on the side. The ball went out of play. I called over — "Hey, ref!" — and he turned around, pointed a finger at me, said "Not now, coach," and turned away.
That was it. That was the whole exchange. I wanted to sub a player in who I'd already flagged before the game started. And I got a finger.
Could I have timed it better? Maybe. It was a throw-in and he wasn't sure which way it was going. Maybe my "Hey, ref!" landed at the exact wrong moment. I can own that. But the defensiveness was immediate. There was no curiosity about what I needed — just a wall.
To be clear: it worked itself out. Next stoppage, I flagged it again, he let the player on, no problem. But the instinct — that instant, pre-emptive defensive posture — that's what I want to talk about.
Incident Two: The Goal
This one is the story.
One of my U7 boys — I call them the babies, they're playing up in a U8/U9 division — kicked the ball back to the goalkeeper. Goalkeeper picked it up. Standing on the goal line. Referee blew the whistle.
Fair call. That's a back-pass. Indirect free kick. I knew it, I accepted it. I started organizing my players around the goalkeeper to block the kick — just to teach them what to do in that moment, because they're seven, they've never been in this situation before.
The referee said: "Coach, you can't do that. It's handball. It's a direct kick."
He then made the goalkeeper stand to the side — not allowed to block a direct kick, apparently — and let a player stand one yard from an unguarded goal and kick the ball in.
And I just stood there thinking — have you ever seen that happen before? In any game, at any level?
I waited until half-time, walked calmly onto the field to bring my players off, and as we were walking, I turned to the referee and said: can you explain that to me? I think it's an indirect free kick. Am I wrong?
That was the question. Not an argument. Am I wrong?
He said "those are the rules, coach, don't talk to me" — and stormed off.
What Happened at Half-Time
He went and checked his phone. I talked to my players. We moved on — because at U7, none of this matters. The other coach was laughing, by the way. His team had just been gifted a goal from one yard out. Fair play to him.
When my players went back onto the field, the referee came up to me.
"Hey coach. I want to apologize. I was wrong."
He shook my hand.
And here's what I said — and I mean this: it's not about right or wrong. I didn't want an apology. I just wanted to have the conversation. Because next weekend he's going to referee another game. And if that situation comes up again and he still believes it's a direct kick, the next coach is going to absolutely lose their mind at him — and that coach might not be as calm as I was trying to be.
I told him: I'm not here to fight you. I'm not here to change your decision in that moment. That's already done. I just want to make sure we've got it right going forward.
The Real Point
That referee had been beaten up by coaches. I don't know how many times, I don't know when, but it was obvious. He couldn't receive a question without bracing for an attack. He couldn't hear "hey, can you explain that?" without it feeling like a confrontation.
And that's not his fault. That's ours.
If you are a coach who yells at referees — who argues calls, who gets in their face, who makes the touchline hostile — you are making it harder for every other coach who just wants to have a calm, honest conversation. You are the reason a referee put his finger up at me when I was trying to sub a player in. You are the reason a referee told me "don't talk to me" when I asked a genuine question.
We talk a lot about the environment we create for our players. The environment we create for referees matters too.
After the game I pulled my boys together and asked if they'd had fun. They said yes. Then one of them asked: "Did we win, coach?"
"That's all we need to worry about, boys."
And off we went.
Listen to the full episode: Ep. 82 — Ref!!!
@LeeDunneSoccer