The Referee's decision is final?

[TheMasterG]

Rule 6.2.
All decisions of the referees on questions of fact shall be final and their interpretation of the rules shall be obeyed throughout the game. No protest or appeal can be made in relation to an interpretive decision of a referee. The referees shall not make any presumption as to the facts of any situation during the game but shall interpret what they observe to the best of their ability.

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Just wondering, those of you Refs out there, is anything being done about the current rules to change this? Once again, I've been screwed over by a ref with nowhere to complain to or get some satisfaction.
It happened in the Europeans in Poland last year, a ref blatantly abused his position but because of this rule there was nothing that could be done.
I'd like to know if this is being addressed or maybe where it can be addressed?

[clyde]

I think this rule found it's way in by way of the ugly situations in Portugals World Champs where protests were flying left right and centre.

So what happened to you then ?

Personally I feel until there are more (many more) non playing ref's, the game will always suffer from the possibility of questionably biased ref's. That's my thought anyway.

In Italy, they have a very professional attitude to administering their championships. The refs are just refs with no affiliation to any of the clubs. The obvious down side to this is that their only exposure to the sport is when they are there refing it !
Sadly, generally, they don't travel to see other games/competitions and so don't see what's going on outside their own back yard.

In practical terms, as poor as they are, they are consistent. It's a good system which could easily be improved just be compulsary re-training.
But in the main, I am struggling to think of a system that is better elsewhere.

We could all learn from this, it's just a problem to get it going. The Italian Federation (FICK) pay for the entire administration of the championships including the supply of officials. This is something I just can't see the BCU putting up the cash for, as they are just too tight !

[TheMasterG]

Originally posted by Clyde
...So what happened to you then ?...
Well there were referee mistakes during the game but that happens, you have to accept it. But the referee refused to give us timeouts on restarts when the opposition were blatantly timewasting as they were winning. This happened a few times and there was nothing we could do :mad:
It's so frustrating because once that final whistle goes you have nowhere to complain to so your only option is to complain to the ref during the game, they don't seem to like that?
I guess the rule is there to stay then? :(

[Samba]

Here's what I think of this...
Am I totally wrong?

*Rule 6.2.
All decisions of the referees on questions of fact shall be final and their interpretation of the rules shall be obeyed throughout the game.

I think that this rule means that the referee shall be obeyed throughout the game, not any longer. So you can make a protest or appeal after the game, not during the game...

*No protest or appeal can be made in relation to
an interpretive decision of a referee.

What is an interpretive decision of a referee?
If he/she doesn't know the rules and blows the whistle always at the wrong time or for the wrong reason, that is not an interpretive decision!!!
And if this happens you surely can make a protest or an appeal!

*The referees shall not make any presumption as to the facts of any situation during the game but shall interpret what they observe to the best of
their ability.

I think this means that, the referee may only blow the whistle when he/she sees something done wrong.

Tell me if I'm lost here...
-Samba

[michielv]

Hi,

This weekend a couple of us had a discussion regarding refereeing right after you played a game, as is common at most tournaments.

We tended to agree that it might influence the quality of the ref as he/she might be mentally still working on the previous game.

To be honest: I personally reffed a game very badly because I was still mad at the ref that did a lousy job during my game before (BTW: we took revenge by beating his team 9-1 ;-).

Although a good ref should be able to take distance from any previous matches this is not always possible.

What do you think: should we try to organise refereeing at tournaments in such a way that people can calm down (if necessary) first and thus improve the quality of refereeing?

Cheers,

Michiel

[clyde]

Ref before you play will get rid of a lot of this problem.

The majo down side is that the player/ref's don't get a warm-up.

The effect of a bitter player who then has to ref is not so much a problem doing it this way.

Alos it's easier to keep games on time, rather than waiting for players to get off the water, have a chat about the game they just played, and then scramble around looking for refing kit.


Clyde

[michielv]

What about ref two games before you play? That way one has
plenty of time to change/warm up.

If a team has plenty of players these can referee prior to playing the game, with the rest of the team warming up. The refs can then warm up during the first minutes of the game.

Of course this is not an option when a team has only 5 players..


Cheers,

Michiel