The loss of referees

WHEN you buy something online these days it is almost always followed by a questionnaire asking what you thought of the website and of the store’s service. All with the intention we assume, of seeing if they need to make some improvement.

Some firms also have exit interviews when people leave their employment.

This is something I feel we are lacking in football in this country.

We are told that something like 7,000 referees give up the whistle each year.

According to the FA, about the same number are recruited, but there is still never enough to provide referees for all games played.

Also only about a sixth of these new referees are 16 or older.

It is only referees over 16, who can referee what is called, open-age football.

Under that age, they can only referee games of players two years younger than themselves.

When you consider that the refereeing lifetime of many of these young men and women is about two years, this doesn’t help local adult football very much.

I read a report recently by a local

Referees Association recruitment officer, who in reporting a loss of membership, said: “We don’t know why they have left, we assume they have found a more interesting hobby”.

I ought to point out to anyone who is not aware, that the Referees Association is not connected with the FA.

It started as a referees’ union and its aim is for the betterment of referees.

It means that referees do not have to join, although there are many benefits if they do.

When I was chairman of the Reading Referees Association we used to phone anyone who didn’t re-join and ask why.

In this way we could look at what we were providing, was it good enough.

This year we understand that the dropout from refereeing is higher than ever but, of course, the pandemic has prevented any training courses taking place to recruit new referees.

County FAs throughout the country are working hard running courses to catch up but as I think I’ve shown, it will be some time before they reach adult football, and we need to discover what’s needed to retain them.