0:02

Hello and welcome to the rest. Need love to podcast to show where we get real raw and behind the scenes on the toughest job on the pitch the referee.

0:10

Today I am interviewing another special guest, Matt Bernard, who is the South Central General Manager for us club soccer not us soccer, not us you soccer.

0:22

Us club soccer us club soccer's mission is to foster the growth and development of soccer clubs throughout the United States, Creating the best possible environment for players and ages in every club.

0:33

This should be interesting. Welcome, Matt.

0:38

Thank you, thanks for having me.

0:41

Oh no, it's my pleasure. I'm so glad to have you here.

0:43

I'm definitely looking forward to this conversation Again.

0:46

I have to tell you, you know, when we first connected I was wondering is like, okay, I've heard of us club soccer, but I really am not quite sure what they do.

0:57

Would you mind telling my audience who is US club soccer?

1:00

What do you guys do?

1:02

Sure, we are a national body underneath the US soccer Federation.

1:07

We are primarily in the youth space, although we do have some adult.

1:11

We have leagues in almost every state.

1:18

We have everything from grassroots at the very, very basic level with five year olds, four year olds all the way up to the ECNL is a league that's sanctioned underneath our umbrella.

1:29

The national premier league is one of our kind, of one of our big leagues that we have across the country, and ultimately it's a group that was created 20 plus years ago by a bunch of soccer directors who wanted to find a better way to kind of cut some of the bureaucracy and get soccer people in charge of soccer, and so it's grown from that small seed to a group now where we have probably 20 full-time employees across the country and significant chunk of the youth soccer landscape under our umbrella.

2:04

I got to tell you, before we were doing this podcast together, I had no idea that ECNL and ECNL.

2:15

First off, ECNL was run by US club soccer.

2:17

I thought it was just some other organization, some other club.

2:21

And then you also mentioned the national premier league.

2:24

Is that the same thing as national league, when I hear that said?

2:28

No, so that's we'll start to. As you said earlier, we'll start to divide the alphabet suit and make it a little bit more clear.

2:36

Bring it tell me so US club yeah, so US club soccer.

2:39

We sanction the ECNL. So the ECNL is run underneath our umbrella, they register through us, but ultimately it's a league that's run by another group of soccer people, the national premier league.

2:51

Similarly. We have 17 of them, I think, currently across the country in different states.

2:55

They are run at the local level by people in that market and so for us we're a little bit more over the top of it, helping in whatever way we can from a development business or soccer wise or referee education or coach education.

3:10

But one of our biggest pillars of our group, of our company, is that we want to let local people make local decisions and we want soccer people in charge of those decisions.

3:25

So I hear that, I think one of the things that's been interesting for myself.

3:32

So I'm, yes, a referee now and have been doing it for 10 years, but I was a soccer coach for a while.

3:39

My son was a soccer player and played in the US Development Academy for a few years and then participated in the alphabet soup of leagues, right, and there were.

3:52

So there's so many different leagues out there, so many different levels.

3:55

Just here in my own state of Georgia, I feel like on a weekly basis, I could be asked to ref in just at the youth level, just at the academy level.

4:06

I feel that there's about eight or nine, maybe even 10 different leagues that I could be refereeing in on any giving week, just in my area, like within my one hour's drive.

4:18

So can you kind of help me understand, help our audience understand?

4:23

How did we get here? I feel like only like five or six years ago it was so simple, like in my area there was, like you know, there was like Academy, like one, two and three, and then there was a classic one, two and three, which is recreational, and three was lower level and one was high.

4:38

How did we get to this point where there's literally you know 10 different leagues.

4:43

Forget it for Academy in one local market and I'm sure it's the same all across the country.

4:50

Yeah, I used to describe it as you know you used to have one church and now you have, you know, 500 different offshoots of different churches.

4:59

I think, ultimately, where it started was when I was a kid.

5:04

I grew up in Northern California. I live in South Carolina now, but when I was a kid everybody played in the state association.

5:10

There was one league. If you played the competitive level, there were eight clubs in the Sacramento area maybe, and now there's legitimately, having just moved from there a hundred plus clubs all playing more or less in the same league.

5:23

That's actually the North Cal Premier League, which was one of our biggest leagues in US Club soccer.

5:27

I think where it's happened is you've had one.

5:33

Every location is different. Right To think that what works in Georgia is the same that works in deep South Texas, where you know you're in just a different community and they have different needs.

5:44

Maybe they have different weather patterns. They can play all year long or they can only play a three month season during the spring or during the summer.

5:54

I think a lot of the new leagues have sprung out of new people with new ideas.

6:00

Hey, I want to do that, we want to add this, we want to add this and people will either gravitate to it or they don't.

6:05

I mean, there's no shortage of different leagues anywhere and it seems that there are more popping up all the time.

6:12

For us we have in the US Club Soccer ecosystem, you have the ECNL, which is a club based competition, so you have to have your entire club, from 13s to 19s, in that ecosystem First teams.

6:28

Well, many of those clubs decided well, we want to have something very similar for our second teams.

6:33

So that's where the ECNL regional league started.

6:36

As in a lot of places, not everywhere is the same, but we want to have the same platform for our second teams, to have a club day where, you know, when I worked in an ECNL club, all six of your ECNL teams played on the same facility on the same day.

6:51

So it created a good environment. It was easier to manage.

6:54

I think you have a lot of clubs that have enjoyed that atmosphere, and so then it's like can we do the same thing for our second teams?

7:02

Or maybe it's clubs that aren't necessarily yet at the level of the ECNL, but their first teams are good enough to play into that regional league.

7:10

Well, let's start that. So similar in the NPL.

7:12

The NPL has the National Premier League that we obviously run and sanction has summer club based because you have clubs that want to do it.

7:21

Summer team based because you have some areas where you have some really talented teams and maybe as a club director, I only have three teams are at that level.

7:28

Well, I want there's so much competition from the of use my finger quotes the business side that there are options and opportunities for teams and clubs all over the country to find what the NPL and the best possible competition.

7:42

You know, and obviously USYS has different things, so they disappear with an old passport and then they maybe og beef they think might work best for them, and it could literally change every six months or every year.

7:54

Yes, so you just brought up USYS, which is US Youth Soccer, and so I'd like to understand if you could possibly explain to me and I'm sorry, I don't understand, I'm naive in this one is either US Youth Soccer or US Club Soccer more closely aligned with US Soccer, the parent organization, if it is a parent organization, or are you both just affiliated with US Soccer?

8:22

I don't understand.

8:23

Yeah if you wanted to draw a pyramid or a Christmas tree, if you will put US Soccer Federation at the top, Please, and then the next level down would be US Youth Soccer, US Club Soccer, AYSO Say Soccer, U-Triple, SA, USA, SA.

8:41

Everybody is on that next level that has that affiliation to the Federation and can offer youth adults some or more into the adult space.

8:51

So US Youth Soccer has 50 plus state associations, the way that they are structured and if you want to look at that comparison to like a US Club Soccer perspective, we don't have state associations.

9:04

We're a national body. We trust the people in market, so our leagues in some way are that state association under our umbrella, if that makes sense.

9:15

Yes, I have a colleague who could draw you an incredible crowd.

9:20

I mean seriously. Oh, I mean, it's one of these things like a Venn diagram is not going to suffice, like it's some type of spider chart or something like that nature.

9:28

I think one of the things that's challenging.

9:32

So you know, just like me, personally I'm someone who's like, maybe I'm naive, but I'm an idealist or something of nature.

9:41

You know, I look over the pond, you know, to England, and I see their wonderful pyramid structure.

9:47

You know their county structure and their league structure and over there it doesn't seem that they do that and in other countries it doesn't seem that they have that kind of structure.

9:59

You know there's the organization, the FA, at the top, if you will, and then you know, at each age group, you know there's a club and a team at that club and they play, you know, each year and they can move up division and move down division.

10:15

That doesn't seem to be the case here in the United States.

10:21

It seems to be. You know, if your club has, you know, is in the ECNL club, in ECNL, or something of nature, that you, your club, will have an ECL team, a top team that plays in the top division, or if it's MLS next, or something like that, as opposed to the pyramid structure, where, if you're a really good team and you stick together for a long time, you can keep on moving up to all these competitions.

10:44

It feels like we have a bit more of a closed system here as opposed to an open.

10:49

You know, promotion, relegation, and maybe that's just a cultural thing.

10:52

I mean, I think you're not wrong in some.

10:54

In some regards, I think every federation across the country is a little bit different, right?

10:58

Like I mean, we actually have a guy, a group, who run a league for us, a national Premier League, who actually has previously and, I believe, still has a league that's very similar to the ECNL in England, because there are so many clubs outside of the professional, the professional level that they wanted something more and so they were able to create something very similar and it's really taken off over there and he's actually replicating it in other parts of the country, which is, you know, it's a little bit the American capitalist model at some level.

11:34

I think what you're seeing more here now, at least under the US club soccer umbrella, is the connection from the national Premier League, the ECNL regional league and the ECNL, and you're seeing more promotion.

11:47

I won't use the term promotion, relegation, because it's not, it's not spot on, but there's more of a pathway If you do well in one, there's an opportunity to move into another.

11:59

If you really struggle in one I actually just got to call the other day that there was somebody who I believe was playing in the I think they moved into the regional league and they realized that their club was just flat out outmatched and they said, hey, you know what?

12:14

The NPL was probably a better fit for us. We would, we would much prefer to go back into that competition and perhaps the team, the club who's in the top spot would, would move forward, would move up, and you know it worked its way out that way.

12:27

I know the ECNL is in Texas specifically, there's the regional league and there's some movement from clubs up or down, if you will, and I think that we're moving in that direction more, but without having a hard, you know, having to be really black and white.

12:46

I used to run a club and we talked about promotion, relegation, actually at the ECNL level in our boys side in Northern California, and my first thing was are you telling me that I have to win every single weekend with my under 13s to ensure that we don't get relegated or we don't end up in this playoff with the other, like, at what point in time are we focused on allowing the clubs to have some time to develop players rather than have to win every single moment?

13:13

And so there's a balance there.

13:16

It's interesting. I so my son played in the at this and when he finished he played in the national Premier League, which I think is it's different from MPL.

13:27

I think it's a US soccer, us youth soccer, affiliated national league.

13:33

Yes, yes, National League, but it was like two, two levels of it.

13:36

So I think he was playing in the top one of that and you know, and they won a state cup, you know, a couple of years in a row with that team.

13:44

I think that the thing that's like challenging as a parent is like you know, where does that sit as against the ECNL, where does it sit against and what's next?

13:54

Because because they are closed competitions, they never get to play each other.

13:58

We never see the best team in one of these.

14:01

You know clubs or league, I guess you would say, play against other best teams in the club.

14:08

And it's interesting, like in my state, like even in my town, we have like three different clubs in our town.

14:14

Well, they all their top teams, all play in different divisions.

14:16

They never play against each other. It's a challenge, I mean.

14:20

I said, I was a director at a club for a long time and I had somebody say to us one day you're irrelevant here, you're irrelevant in the town, you're your top club, one of the top clubs in the country, but you don't play anybody locally.

14:33

And you know because, especially with your top teams, and so there is an element where you want your top teams to play the other top teams locally and you presume that you would have success and you would maybe attract better players or minimally make it really clear why you are who you are.

14:51

And I think we've now. You know, we use the term regularly.

14:54

We have teams driving past each other to go play in a game in another league, because those teams that are closer to them play in a different league, you know, and so we have this, we have it's a really weird dynamic that I don't think there's.

15:10

There's no way to really put that toothpaste back in the tube, if you will, because we have so many leagues, you know, and everybody desires something differently.

15:19

It just it really that's I think that's what a lot of these leagues have sprung up from is, you know, hey, we want to have this, okay, well, we don't.

15:25

We want to have this okay. Well then, I guess we'll go create our own league and because there are so many options, you know you have them pop up on a fairly regular basis and it's frankly, as somebody who works in the industry and is in the business, it's hard to keep up with on occasion.

15:40

So I and I'm now on the other side of it is a soccer parent and I'm pretty sure my daughter, who's eight, plays in the South Carolina State League.

15:50

She doesn't play in the US club league and she wouldn't care, no matter what, because she's eight years old, she just wants to play with her friends, you know.

15:58

So it's. Yeah, there's definitely some some strange, some challenges there.

16:04

That you know. I think it's it's tough to navigate as a parent and know which, and as a referee.

16:08

Going back to what you said, we used to have referees show up and say, hey, what, what competition is this?

16:14

Because I need to make sure that my subset, that I'm following the substitution rules correctly, or you know, and you would have times where referees would have, inevitably, you'd be in the middle of a game and they would do something and you're like hey, no, no, no, we can, actually, we can sub on this free kick or we can't.

16:32

You know, they're just. It causes the challenges for everybody.

16:36

Oh yeah, no, absolutely, and I definitely want to talk about referees in a second.

16:39

I have just one last question on this and I'm sorry to the laborer, this, this point of this line of question, but I think it's really interesting.

16:47

I mean, again, as a referee, I just show up to the matches.

16:50

Obviously I need to know what level of competition is, but I think it generally most of the referees I know have been involved in the game as a player, as a coach, you know, as a, as a parent, and so we are genuinely curious as well.

17:04

You know, it seems, and I'd love to kind of understand from a US club soccer's perspective.

17:11

I mean, you said it, it's like the soccer it's, it's, it's become, you know, all year, you know, teams are traveling all over the place, all across the country.

17:21

It seems that costs continue to rise for every level of player.

17:24

I mean every level player. I mean I see kids, you know, and I'm not trying to to be be disparaging in any way but I see some teams play and they've got like really high level club association, really high level league associations with them and I'm like man, that would have been a wreck.

17:41

You know a team, you know a few years ago and now is in a very high level competition, or at least it's branded as such.

17:48

And so they're traveling, you know, to numerous tournaments over the year.

17:52

They're playing year round. I'm sure they're being encouraged to do the extra coaching and the costs have continued to rise.

17:58

Is there any movement afoot within US club soccer to work with the clubs, to be like yo guys, let's dial this back.

18:06

Maybe not every kid you know, and every league needs to be doing this.

18:12

Yeah, I mean, I think we are very cost conscious as a, as an organization, because we understand how most of the many of the people who work with us and in our entire board there's actually requirements that they have to be at a certain level of coaching license.

18:33

They have to be a director in a club or run a league, and so we are all very, very aware of it.

18:39

I think you know the challenge becomes we don't, as a US club's owner, we don't tell people what to do.

18:44

Right, the way we take in our, our money is through player registration and coach registration.

18:50

That's, you know, that's how we, that's how we make the money to run the organization.

18:58

Similarly, I think you, what you end up with a club at the club level is a captive audience who's willing to do whatever they need to do in order to, at some level, stay relevant and stay on the stay on that cutting edge.

19:12

You know, and I, having been a director and a coach for 20 plus years until this last year, I'm now on the other side of it and paying for my daughter's soccer and looking at it from a completely different perspective, like, okay, we're going to drive two and a half hours in each direction to play a 60 minute game at eight years old or 50 minute game Like this.

19:35

This make make it make sense, right, and I get it Like.

19:38

You know, you have a, you have a state league and maybe that that team that's like in our situation would be Myrtle Beach, where that that club in Myrtle Beach doesn't have a lot of competition around them.

19:49

So for them to get games they need to have it.

19:51

So I'm I'm sympathetic at some level because I think you know you don't want to punish a bunch of kids because of where they live, but it's become, I mean, that's probably a really a really minor drive compared to you know.

20:06

I mean I, I run, or I'm the general manager for the South Central, so I have Texas, you know, and I have.

20:13

We were speaking, I'm speaking to somebody the other day and they said, look, to get from El Paso to Houston, it's faster to go to San Diego than it is to drive over there, and my head about exploded because it doesn't make sense.

20:27

But it's totally right. And so you have some of these places geographically that they just have to and they know, because they live where they live, that that's just going to be a thing.

20:35

But I think and I may be rambled off your question a little bit, but I think you have a patch that people are drawn to.

20:45

Whatever one, it is right. It could be MLS, next, could be CNL, could be NPL, could be you know you name.

20:51

There's so many of them. You know and I hear people all the time, but I see and read on social media which one's the best league, which one?

21:00

Where should my kid be? And it's like find the best spot for your child.

21:04

You know, if you want to travel all over the country, knock yourself out.

21:08

There's great opportunities for that. I coached in the CNL, I coached in the NPL, I coached in the state association.

21:14

There's great people doing great things all across the country.

21:18

Figure out what fits best and you know my daughter at eight years old is just fine where she's at and you know, if she outgrows where she's at, then we'll find a different opportunity for her.

21:28

But I don't know.

21:30

I just haven't been on the other side of it running a club for so long.

21:33

I just have a different perspective now and I'm totally okay with my kid being in her local league at eight years old and I don't care what patch she wears.

21:43

Yeah, I think you said it really great. I mean it's we are in America, right, where it just honestly, I mean this is a you know, we are an entrepreneurial, you know country.

21:53

I think we also are a consumer driven country.

21:57

You know there is a lot of keeping up with the Joneses.

22:00

I mean we all do it. I mean I could tell you that, oh, I don't do that.

22:04

Come on, I mean we, you know, you think about, you know where's my kid playing?

22:07

Is he having the great, best opportunity possible to be able to eventually I don't know maybe go play in college or something like that?

22:13

Forget about a college scholarship. These days that's not existing.

22:16

But you know, like you dream of these things and you live your life for your kids, you're trying to put them in the best position to succeed.

22:23

So I get it. Well said, got it All right.

22:25

Now let's flip the script a little bit and let's talk about ref.

22:29

So yesterday actually it's funny you talk about teams traveling.

22:31

I refer read MLS next, between Southern Soccer Academy, which is based here in Georgia but is a massive club, as you know, as I think, over 20,000 kids in their leagues.

22:42

Now I try and really do when I work.

22:46

Any match and I feel like I have really good match rapport is I spend time building rapport with the coaches as soon as I show up on that field.

22:54

And then they played Triangle United, which is from the Raleigh Durham area, so like a seven hour drive away.

22:59

So it was like that but one of the things that you know, and getting to know them and asking about the season and everything and trying to build, you know, good relations with them.

23:09

But we know that there's sometimes very strained relationships between referees and coaches.

23:15

So in US club soccer I mean you guys run coaching licenses and coaching training right, you guys do grassroots DC all that stuff.

23:24

Is there any training for coaches on how to work with referees and, if not, should there be?

23:32

Yeah, on the job training most of the time.

23:34

Yes, I should. There be 100% US Clubs.

23:38

Hocker, does you know? All of our almost all of our coaching education now is Federation based, right, so it's B license, c license, d license, grassroots, whatever.

23:49

Those keep changing to changes. Every every year they're adding new stuff or renaming things.

23:53

Obviously, most of that is about the technical, tactical side of the game.

23:59

I think there, if I can think back to the last time I took a coaching course, like there's some, there's some referee education or education on how to deal with referees, but not enough, and I think a lot of it is a on the fly, learning as you go as a coach, and there really is a.

24:18

There's a strained dynamic between a lot of coaches and a lot of referees before they even show up.

24:24

You know everybody. I just saw a thing the other day on Instagram where you know people are putting up videos all the time and I'm not technically savvy enough to even call them the right thing.

24:35

That's actually where I came across you. But somebody, somebody posted a video and it was a bunch of kids walking up to the soccer field and it was a when you see that ref and you know what kind of day it's going to be and the kids all throw their bags down and walk away.

24:49

And you know I get that they're trying to be funny or trying to be trying to be cute, but you know, at some level, what are we?

24:56

What are we teaching? Because now you know, look, we've all been there, we've all.

25:02

As a referee, I can imagine you show up to a game and you have a frequent flyer, if you will, somebody that you've dealt with on a number of occasions, who you know is going to be an issue, and you know you try to come and do it a good headspace.

25:15

But you, it's inevitable, we're all human, we all know what we've.

25:18

You know we all have that, that pre pre experience, that.

25:21

Okay, here we go again and I think what you said, the biggest thing about coming in and trying to communicate and humanize yourself, and those pieces are really important for both sides Because, at the end of the day, if I can disagree with you and if I disagree as a, from a coaching perspective, if I disagree with you, and it's funny and we, you know you miss that one, you get one.

25:46

You know, like those, I mean, we have those conversations and you.

25:49

There's a, there's a nice back and forth there in a positive way.

25:53

That's not a. I think you're terrible at your job and you're a bad human and I think it rises to that level so quickly and it just, you know it's, it's unproductive.

26:06

Yes, I would agree. Unproductive is a very, very, very good word to describe it.

26:12

It's interesting. So a couple of things you said there.

26:15

Yes, so as a parent, a soccer parent, and as a soccer referee, sometimes I've seen referees that are bad.

26:23

Actually, one of the greatest reasons to become certified as a referee is out of spite for bad referees.

26:29

I'm telling you, I had a young woman yesterday, 26 years old, as a former coach.

26:36

So she was a soccer coach and you know she's now at a point in her life where she's got she.

26:43

She stopped coaching, she got really frustrated with coaching just this past year and decided you know what?

26:48

You know, I could do a better job than some of these reps that I'm seeing here.

26:51

I'm going to go get certified as a ref and she shadowed me yesterday and we talked about it.

26:55

She's grabbing a whistle because she feels like no man.

26:58

I think I could do a better job out there. That's a wonderful reason to become a referee.

27:02

If you think you could do a better job, come on over.

27:05

We'd love to see you. I think the challenge for coaches is and for me as a ref, like there are some referees, like there's one particular comes to mind.

27:16

She's just not good and I have to tell you I've mentioned it to the assigner like, hey, the level of matches for this person is probably you 10 and below.

27:28

You know, there's such a shortage of referees these days.

27:30

Sometimes I feel that referees who are definitely not qualified are being placed into positions to ref higher level matches just because there's so few qualified referees out there.

27:42

I think the challenge then for coaches is how do I manage that with my team?

27:48

You know, am I going to verbalize it in the match, in front of all the coaches and players, that a referee is missing calls?

27:56

Because I would ask you, you know, matt, when you do that, if you've got a referee who's, you know, I guess not calling fouls the way you see them, or maybe not officiating the match, so we see him.

28:08

What happens, matt, when you, as a coach, starts yelling at the referee in front of everyone?

28:13

How does that affect the players and the spectators?

28:16

Yeah, I was going to say the spectators got to be a part of that equation too.

28:19

It's inevitable your players are going to take on your persona, your energy.

28:25

You know my college coach, who is still a very good friend, and when we used to have Inter Squad games and even when I was coaching with him in college he used to we used to do a thing called bad ref and he would purposefully blow calls in the middle to just really get under people's skin.

28:44

And I can say, as somebody who I don't say any of the things I say from like a pulpit, like I took plenty of yellow cards.

28:52

I took, you know, I was thinking about it this morning as I was waking up.

28:55

I had a coach when I was a kid who used to say you're in goal, stop yelling at the referee 100 yards away and trying to tell him what he did wrong.

29:02

Stand back over there and make saves. And you know, as a 15 year old kid you can't really get your head wrapped around it.

29:08

Now I'm so grateful that that person you know everything's, everything's ramped up now, right, and maybe part of it is what you, what we talked about Every league feels like it's the most important league in the world on any given Saturday or Sunday Told me that I was such an idiot.

29:22

Just be quiet and do your job.

29:25

But I think the reality is is that and you know, everybody has to win or they have to like oh God, if we drop two points, what's going to happen?

29:34

And and it's now kind of reached this fever pitch where you have just craziness happening on sidelines Coaches, parents, players, otherwise and it's really, it's really gotten ugly and it's taken away so much from the game.

29:50

And you know that's like. I know we're going to go here in a second, but I deal with so much discipline stuff and I used to be that player who all I cared about was winning.

29:59

I wanted to win, I wanted to compete, but there's, it's now risen to a level where just craziness is happening and we got to get a handle on it because it's just, it's not just our country, it's happening all over the world, as you saw the other day in Turkey again, I think in Turkey, right.

30:17

I mean just the chaos that comes from people invading games and really losing perspective on what's going on.

30:25

And we're watching a kid's game and the world's not going to end if we lose this game.

30:30

Yeah, so can you talk about that? And I think you've told me that you actually do get involved in disciplinary issues, you know for clubs, coaches, you know around the South Central, southeast.

30:41

I mean, what are you seeing out there?

30:44

I mean, can you give me a range of the type of things that you see on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

30:49

So the US Soccer Federation basically mandates that anytime there's a referee abuse or assault it has to be heard by the, by the member.

30:58

So in this situation of the US Club Soccer, so when those come into us we have to have discipline hearings and I unfortunately sit on on a lot of those, and that could range anywhere from.

31:11

You know, verbal abuse is very subjective because it's not well spelled out in the policies.

31:18

So there have been occasions where, you know, the coach told me I was terrible.

31:24

Okay, that's not like. That doesn't rise to the level you know.

31:27

And then there's other times where maybe a coach says that they're going to unalive that person and you know, like that now has reached a different level.

31:35

And so we're, we're, we are regularly dealing with referee abuse and referee assaults, whether it's players to referees, coaches to the referees.

31:45

The latest trend has been parents to referees Over the last couple of years.

31:51

And you know, now, in the state of video being everywhere, you know we get some, we get some pretty gnarly stuff that comes in that you're just like this, you should go to jail for this and that's that's.

32:03

You know, we obviously aren't a legal entity, but there are things that that they definitely raised to that level and it's at some level killing the game and really it's just really made it challenging.

32:23

I think I, for referees without question right referees have now become this target.

32:27

I think it's maybe post COVID, it's got.

32:31

It got a lot worse. That's just my own anecdotal experience.

32:34

They think everybody's ramped up, you know, post the couple.

32:37

Well, I was in California so we were locked away for a long time.

32:40

Coming out of it, everybody was, you know, free if you will.

32:46

But we deal with. I have.

32:48

We have a coach, you know, coach to coach, coach to player, player to coach, coach to referee, player to referee.

32:55

I mean, we're dealing with all kinds of different stuff and you know, ultimately we have a committee that sits and meets and we give people their day in court.

33:02

But we've now gotten to the point in our leagues, have gotten to the point where they're fed up, you know, and the one thing I left out is and it's become probably the most prevalent issue is the racial, racially abusive language that we are seeing on a regular basis.

33:20

It's become normalized at some level, and so we have now we're putting, we're putting things into place within us club soccer, and I think the Federation is as well to really try to stamp this out, because it's a real issue.

33:34

Yeah, no, I gosh.

33:37

I mean I don't do nearly as many matches as many of my colleagues.

33:41

I had a guy I was with yesterday oh, no, a woman I was working with yesterday who had 16 games this weekend.

33:45

I only had two this weekend because I also do high school during the week.

33:48

But just to give you some idea, I think I've had two red cards on my matches for either homophobic slurs or racist abuse just in the last month and a half.

34:01

So I trust me, I'm very familiar with that issue and it continues to grow and scale and scope and it's concerning.

34:11

You mentioned, if I can, and I'm sorry, just to appreciate, I mean, the people who listen to my podcast.

34:17

Are these referees who are receiving, you know, abuse on a and they see it often.

34:24

Thankfully, I don't get a lot of it. I just have to say I'm very thankful I've been fortunate in the last couple of years.

34:31

I know it happens. I think part of it is because I nip it in the bud so early if there is anything, and that comes with experience.

34:38

But you said that the referee abuse is happening regularly or assaults are happening regularly.

34:45

I get people obviously send me stuff because of my channel, like I get things sent to me almost, if not every day, every other day, of some example of either verbal abuse or physical abuse or something of nature or assault.

35:00

I mean, what are you seeing? Are you seeing stuff coming in every single weekend, is it, you know, multiple times a weekend?

35:07

I mean, what are you getting right now?

35:10

Yeah, I mean as a national body with leagues all over the country.

35:13

Yes, every weekend, minimally.

35:16

You know, obviously there's down times of the year.

35:18

Right now, being that we're towards the end of March, spring League is up and running and so everybody is coming out and snow's melting in parts of the country and people are getting back into game.

35:28

So we know like there's going to be a heavy load of stuff now coming up between now and the summer.

35:36

Yeah, it just it really it varies and you know you, some places, some, some places are better than others about turning it in, about sending it in, and you know we have some leagues who are.

35:48

We get stuff on a regular basis from them because they send it to us, and there's other leagues in the country that they deal with a lot of it internally.

35:56

Or, you know, I talked to a league yesterday in Texas and they said we, we don't have, we haven't had anything that has risen to the level of referee abuse or referee assault in our league.

36:10

And going back to what we spoke about earlier, some of the people or some of the leagues that have been created in the ECNL I think that the genesis of the ECNL was this is that you have people who work in a similar manner, who operate in a similar manner, and you generally know what you're going to get on any given day when you go play against Club X, y or Z, and when you have that, when you've created that environment, it is you know, you know generally that you're not going to have some of that chaos.

36:42

You know, and that's why you have, when you go back to some of the close leagues that you referenced, you have some of these, some of these leagues that are like, or some of these clubs like hey, I don't want that club that I put, that's live, that's next door to me, because every time we see them, something goes sideways.

36:57

We don't want to play them and so I get it.

37:00

I've run, I've run clubs.

37:02

I've been in that. I've been in that world where you know when you're going to go play against Club X, something's going to happen inevitably, and whether it's a bad dynamic between players or parents or coaches, something's going to go sideways.

37:14

And I think a lot of people have tried to avoid that rather than try to fix it.

37:19

I have one club where I've dismissed a coach from that club, I've dismissed parents from that club.

37:22

I mean I will avoid that club like the plague and somehow they're still in the talk leaves.

37:29

So that brings me to my last question here on this topic.

37:33

You know, matt, it's just about the discipline side of this.

37:36

So there is no national registry for referee abusers or people who are found guilty of referee abuse or clubs that have parents that are sent off, you know, from the pitch more often than others.

37:49

You know I, for all the times and listen, it's not like I send people off all the time.

37:55

I probably in my 10 years have dismissed five coaches.

37:59

You know in 10 years we're talking over a thousand matches.

38:02

Five times have I had to read Carter coach?

38:04

Maybe 10 times have I had to send a coach. Sometimes have I had to send a parent from the pitch.

38:08

But I had an ECNL game where I had parents who were yelling derogatory things at girls on another team, like yelling hateful derogatory things and I wrote a report and no one ever asked me about that report.

38:27

I have no idea what happened, no idea to the discipline.

38:31

I just kind of I put my report in with my assigner and I guess they send it to the league and I have no idea what happens to it Like.

38:40

Can you give us some idea? What's the process Like if a referee does fill out a report or there's been a report or a referee abuse?

38:47

What are the types of penalties that might be out there for either the coach or parents or the club?

38:54

What happens there?

38:56

Well, I think you hit on a topic that we've been talking about recently.

38:59

Is you, as the referee, come across this issue and who do I send it to?

39:05

I send it to my assigner Okay, it is my assigner for sure.

39:07

Send it to the league or the federation, or, and so I think there's a process.

39:13

That process has to get sorted out and we actually are working on it internally, because even we have things that come in and and we should it be disciplined or should it be compliance?

39:24

Are we talking about a potential abuse, verbal abuse, issue of a player, or is it something we should deal with on a discipline level?

39:32

So I think there's work. We are actively working to try to sort that out of the US club level at least, because the federation you know we have leagues under us Well, the federation has all of these things that they're trying to navigate and I can't imagine it's challenging to be a one size fits all or to capture all of it.

39:50

But I think, from a referee perspective, anytime that there's an allegation of it's 531-9 and the US soccer federation policies and I should be able to read them to you out of the back of my head, because I've been doing this for 11 years now.

40:04

But basically, if there's an, if there's an allegation of referee abuse or assault, the league, or whoever the league is under US YS US club, we are required to have it, to have a hearing or to or to hand down some kind of discipline if it's warranted.

40:18

So for referee abuse, the minimum from the federation is three games.

40:22

For referee assault, the minimum is three months and referee assault could vary anything from I, you know, I touch your shoulder and I've seen that happen or I accidentally brush against you to I head, butch you, and you know there's all the, all the things in between, and my understanding is that the federation is working to try to really clarify some of those things to make it a lot better for referees and for coaches and players and parents.

40:48

But ultimately I think you know, going back to what you asked, like how do we, how do we make sure this gets to?

40:55

I believe and I am the term is the SRA right.

40:59

Is that your state referee?

41:00

designer yes, yes.

41:03

State referee administrator, administrator, sorry, your SRAs are the ones that, if you have something that you don't think is getting dealt with at the league level, I believe those are your best, your best next step and I just got an email the other day from an SRA in one of the territories that I deal with and you know, hey, we haven't seen anything from this league in a long time.

41:24

Okay, well, listen, here's what we're asking them to do.

41:27

Here's the discipline matrix that we're now we've created and we're working off of, and they know, if there's a abuse or assault claim, then they need to send it to you and it needs to come to us as well, and we will deal with it at the US club level if it rises to that level, and it most often it does.

41:45

Well, I appreciate you sharing, you know, some transparency on that.

41:48

It's one of these things that's very much a black box to me as a referee, and I know my fellow referees.

41:54

I would just say, as we, you know, we look forward and try to look forward.

42:00

I think there's a lot that could be gained from you know, referees, maybe sharing with clubs and coaches.

42:08

Hey, here's, here's our perspective on these issues, here's how you can help us, here's how we can help you.

42:18

And I think we need to find a way, we need to find the words and the channels to be able to communicate in a way that does not lead to that toxic, like anger filled, emotion, overflowing environment where these types of things happen because no coach wants to lose their job, you know.

42:42

No parent wants to be, you know, dismissed or not have the ability to come watch their kid at matches.

42:48

No one wants to see that man.

42:51

So how do we and I'm being sincere, like sincere how do we, as, as referees, how can we possibly help US club soccer and coaches come to a better place so we could eliminate those toxic environments?

43:05

I think, well, start at the club level, right, if you guys, I would imagine many referees are working in their general local area, right?

43:14

Like I said, I was in Sacramento. So we saw, we saw very similar pools of referees on a regular basis and you get on a first name basis with them when you're there and not afraid of I'm if I'm sitting out at six games at an ECNL weekend.

43:25

I know Greg and I know you know I know these guys.

43:29

You just start to get to know people and I think at some level you can create relationships, right, and they don't have to be your best buddies.

43:35

But you know, we had, I've had referees come to me and say, hey, man, like this guy, nobody wants to do his games.

43:42

This guy who works for you, no one wants to do his games.

43:45

Like you are not getting referees on this guy's games because he's such a jerk, and it's just.

43:51

It's a constant, consistent thing. And so then, as a director, you have an opportunity to go and make some corrective actions or understand that you're going to, you're going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for referees and or if somebody comes up there, or if somebody comes there, they're coming reluctantly because the assigner has now basically said hey, I'll give you hazard pay to go referee this guy.

44:14

And I think as referees you have a lot of power and a lot of ability to to at least let people know what's going on, because not every director is there every day.

44:23

Right, you can't see the. You got the club that I worked at.

44:27

We had 45 teams and I coached a team and I was gone and you know you've got 100 games on a weekend and inevitably somebody's going to be a bad actor, whether it's a parent or otherwise, and if we don't know about it we can't fix it.

44:39

I think at the local level that's probably the quickest way to solve it.

44:44

But if you have, if you have a frequent flyer or a club, that's a constant issue, I think allowing the league and or your assigner and or your SRA know like, hey, we're having, we're having constant problems with this group and this is it's.

44:57

You know it's going to reach a boiling point at some point.

44:59

You know we at US Club soccer we have a, we have a discipline log that's been going for years and years and years and I could go access it now and and we are trying to find ways to keep track of frequent flyers, if you will, because we want to.

45:15

We want to target, not target, but we want to identify who the problems are and know in advance and then ultimately try to help them find ways to make it better.

45:24

Right, like we're not. We're not in the business of trying to. I hate to.

45:27

I hate doing discipline and punishment. We all do.

45:29

Everybody who works in my, in my role as a general manager, we are all either have run clubs or played collegiate at least that we're all soccer people and so we get on these calls and it's like Okay, man, I've been there, I've been on the other side of that, I've been the coach who's frustrated, I've been the coach who wants to have a go at the referee.

45:46

But like, you can't get to this point where where you kind of lose the plot and you've lost sight of what's important.

45:51

I know I rambled a little bit there, but I think no, no, no, listen, man, I hear you.

45:57

I think you're yeah, no one wants to, you know have to discipline someone or anything like that.

46:03

I will just say one thing you said that I think is so interesting and I know we're going to start wrapping up the conversation here, but the I could literally talk about this for hours and I find it so fascinating.

46:12

I have to tell you, as a referee, I show up as an independent contractor and I feel really like I'm on my own.

46:20

You know, aside from my little crew of referees, that I'm with that day.

46:24

You know we're a team, together we can be the third team, but you know we show up and we leave and I've never really thought about potentially reaching out to a club director, as you said, and said hey, man, you may want to have a conversation with this guy, like I would never feel.

46:38

It's my place, my connection. I'm employed, I guess you will, by the assigner and that's who I communicate with and who I know.

46:44

But I will tell you, really well, run clubs and I get and I choose where I ref, right, and I only ref there, and really well, come run, run clubs, have their administrators at the field, their directors are walking around.

47:00

They pay to have mentors at the pitch.

47:03

They pay someone 25 bucks an hour to be there and work with the junior referees and walk around all the pitches to give feedback, whatnot, and they're connected to what's happening on the pitch and they're gathering that feedback.

47:16

They're making sure that hey ref you doing okay.

47:19

Sometimes they have water out for us. One club I go to they even have snacks oh my gosh, snacks.

47:23

It's like the most amazing things.

47:26

But they make me feel welcome and they make me feel like I'm a part of the solution or the extended family.

47:33

Obviously, I'm not part of that club, certainly not.

47:35

I'm there as a objective, independent referee, but they make me feel welcome.

47:39

They make me feel like my voice is heard and I think the coaches see that too, that they can't just talk to that referee as if they're completely disconnected, non-human.

47:49

They're here too and they treat us like human beings and man.

47:54

I tell you, the games go so much better when you are comfortable as a referee and you could be comfortable making decisions.

48:01

You need to make proactively as opposed to reactively.

48:04

Am I going to yell that for someone? By making a decision, it makes you perform so much better on the pitch.

48:10

You can grow and develop more positively and quicker as well.

48:14

It's fantastic.

48:17

Well, but you're also when the situation you just described.

48:20

You're not worried about getting punched in the head.

48:22

Oh, no, no, no, no. That's the farthest thing you can find. There's security, yes.

48:27

I think that's when you create that environment for players, for referees, for coaches, where you're free to fail and you're free to make a mistake without fear of like do I have to constantly check my shoulder to make sure nothing's coming from behind me.

48:41

It creates a completely different environment and I think, yeah, it's as an organization we are trying to.

48:51

We're trying to do more referee support. We have our national Premier League and national cup finals in Denver every year where we're there for three or four weeks at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and this last year they brought in FIFA level referees to help mentor the referees that are coming in through all of our leagues and from all across the country, because, at the end of the day, if you guys don't get better at your job, then the game's going to you know and get more comfortable and continue to have development.

49:18

The game for me is continuing to ramp up and get better and better and better.

49:22

I look at the way it is now compared to when I was a kid.

49:24

You know now I feel like a dinosaur, but the game, every player, so far beyond where we were as kids and I think the level of refereeing has not been allowed to catch up because so many people have been pushed out.

49:37

Right, there was such a shortage of referees.

49:39

We all see it. My daughter's had three or four games this year where she hasn't had referees show up.

49:43

And thankfully they're eight and the coaches can manage it and it's totally fine and the parents don't say anything.

49:47

But we used to have ECNL games where you're like is there a third referee coming?

49:51

Is there? What do you mean? There's not three referees.

49:54

How is this? Oh no, trust me, I've been there.

49:57

We're at that point now, as a country where we have the games growing.

50:01

People are wanting to play more and more and more.

50:03

There's 7000 leagues, as you've alluded to, and there's not enough referees.

50:08

And you know we have to, as a club, as an organization, as a governing body, we have to do more to protect referees, to encourage the game, to encourage the growth of referees, because if not, then we're going to be playing games with one referee which is completely legal, by the way, based upon the rules, and people freak out when they show up whether it was one referee.

50:28

They do it all over the world, but here we expect to have three referees on an under 12 game because, god forbid, somebody can't miss an offside, you know, and somebody wins a game.

50:40

No, I completely hear you. I will tell you. The one caution I have is you guys bring in people like the FIFA referees or these very, very experienced, mature referees who have referees professionally and I've gone and I'll just tell you ECNL, ecnl weekend and you bring in that top referee and their advice to the referees keep your eyes open and keep your ears closed, because they don't want to have to stop the match to deal with a parent or coach issue or something like that.

51:08

Right, because in their world they've ref pro matches where they've got security and they're getting paid a lot of money to go out there and just drown out the crowd noise because it's a thing of entertainment.

51:18

But let me tell you this that parent who's yelling and yelling and yelling and doesn't seem to be getting through to that referee, well, when the words don't work, then it gets physical and that's when referee abuse occurs.

51:33

And that's the one thing I find that these very experienced referee you know, mentors or people who have ref professionally don't get.

51:41

Is the reality for us on the pitch as a grassroots referee, with nothing between us and those spectators, with no one walking us to our cars in the parking lot, is that, if you don't nip that behavior in the bud, they will go into what I call the reptilian brain and all of a sudden my words aren't working.

52:00

Well, now I'm going to hit someone. It's like a three year old.

52:03

You know, the three year old wants to do something and they get all upset and all of a sudden they lose control and they start lashing out.

52:10

It is the same thing and we need to change.

52:14

We need to change things before it gets to that place because, as you said, it will be too late.

52:19

We used to have 140,000 grassroots referees certified in this country before COVID.

52:24

We now have under 100,000 and the numbers aren't looking good, my friend.

52:28

They continue to go down. In my high school association we have 330 registered referees to do 6,800 games in an eight week period of time.

52:40

It is impossible. The last game I watched, I was at a game last week getting 330 for 6,800 games and only 250 of them are fit at any given point in time and they work full time jobs.

52:51

The last game I was at the three referees on the pitch, by the way, who I thought did a wonderful job.

52:55

One of them was 62, one of them was 65, one of them was 67 years old, I kid you not, and I'm still out there and giving it.

53:04

So, matt, I just want to tell you I think there's so much work that needs to be done and it's not impossible.

53:13

This is not insurmountable, it is not.

53:17

I was a rugby referee before I was a soccer referee.

53:20

Let me tell you, you can have a positive, respectful culture in a highly competitive environment.

53:27

Those two things are not mutually exclusive, man, and I think, if we, as the refereeing body, can work closer with our clubs and our coaches, that we could create an environment that the parents are a part of too, where there's a culture of respect and tolerance to enable the kids to flourish, because it really is about the kids, I also think.

53:56

I also think, though, gerson, one of the things that attracted me to your social media was, I think, the education piece.

54:02

I mean, I sit on my daughter's sideline playing seven versus seven, and I sit as far away as I possibly can, over in the corner by myself, because I just want to watch my kid, and I love my kid enough to know that if I start talking to her, it's not going to help her.

54:17

But there's so many people who don't understand the rules, and many of them played at some level, even myself.

54:24

I coached a game last year. I covered a game for my wife, and there was a rule in 77 about the build outline that I, as somebody who only coached older teams, didn't know, and so I'm like referee, referee, and the referee came over as I came out Like this is the rule, and I'm like, oh, I'm an idiot, I run, I'm a director of this club and I didn't know that.

54:45

I am so sorry. Thank you for educating me.

54:48

And so where I was going with that is, I think, the video that you're doing on your social media, with the scenarios and showing different angles, because I think you put one on there the other day with the tackle that looked like he was just lunging in and from one angle it just looked like he was late, and from the other angle it looked like he was trying to snap his leg in half.

55:06

And people don't have that perspective you only see where you're sitting from and I think that that is really helpful to show these scenarios and ultimately educate people, because there are subtleties within the game that even somebody who, like myself, has done it forever there are things that I learn all of the time.

55:27

They're like how did I not know that? I played this game for all my life and I didn't know that was a rule?

55:33

Wow, I got more to do.

55:37

And the average parent? They don't have anywhere near that knowledge as the coach or the director or even the referee on the field.

55:44

So I think I've had some very good referees, or I've seen some very good referees who, when they have that parent who's chirping and chirping and chirping, they actually, rather than turning it into a volatile situation, they go over and just explain hey guys, this is what we're calling, this is what it, and I've seen that like work, like magic, and people just said oh OK, thanks for the explanation, you know, and if you have an outlier who's looking for an argument or a fight, there's nothing you're going to do to solve that.

56:15

You know. And then ultimately, I think putting it on the coaches or the club to go and deal with that problem parent is the only thing as a referee you can do, because the moment you engage with them, you know where that.

56:25

You know where that generally goes towards.

56:27

I know it's, it's so hard. I think communication is important and I and honestly, matt, I think this conversation you know, we could talk about this for hours I think that the big thing that we all need to know and we need to take away is this can change, this does not have to be our reality.

56:42

We do not have to see referees abuse.

56:45

We do not have to see these parents fighting on the sidelines or anything like that.

56:50

We don't, it doesn't, it should not exist.

56:53

We can, you know, be the change we wish to create and, matt, I so appreciate everything that you're doing for the development of the game across the country and specifically in your region, and what you're doing for US club soccer.

57:06

I know the landscape can be, you know, challenging to manage, you know and that, but you know, hey, that that's America, it really is, it's a beautiful thing.

57:16

It is, it is a thing, it's a good thing and a bad thing, and the growth of the game is probably a come from that.

57:21

So again, matt, thank you so much for your time, thank you for what you do for US club soccer, thank you for your support of my channel, and I just I'll give you a last word.

57:31

Is there anything you'd like to just say out there to all the referees who are listening to this podcast?

57:37

I'm sorry. I'm sorry to the ones that I was a drop to.

57:41

I actually moved in next door to one a handful of years ago and he said I remember you and it was somebody who coached referee me as a youth.

57:48

We turned her out to be good buddies and used to sit in his backyard and have a drink.

57:51

So, bob, if you're listening, hello.

57:53

No, I mean, I think the biggest thing is thank you.

57:56

Right, like it's, it's a thankless job a lot of times.

58:02

And I would say to the referees, and I would also say to the parents now, as somebody who's just a soccer parent, give each other some grace, right, let people to be, let people have the space to not be perfect, communicate with each other.

58:17

And for referees, if there's something that rises to the level that you're really uncomfortable with, you got to say something about it, because you're not, you're probably not the first one that's dealt with it and you're not going to be the last one.

58:28

You know, and I had a referee recently come to me and say if I didn't address this with this coach, who's going to?

58:35

Because I can deal with it as a 45 year old man, but the 22 year old kid who has him.

58:40

Next week that kid's going to get run over and you know, I think that we owe it to each other to to do everything we can to make the game better, and it's a slow process, without question, like I wish I had a magic wand to make it go fast.

58:53

But from a US club soccer perspective referees, we appreciate you, we support you, we need you and you know, we just were grateful, grateful for the opportunity to chat with you today and I appreciate you having me on and if we can ever if you have soccer, or if I can never help in any way, let us know, excellent.

59:14

Matt, thank you so much. And for those you know listening this week, you know I hope you've appreciated this episode of refs need love to.

59:20

You know, we cannot exist without the clubs and the coaches and the parents and players who make the game possible and finding ways for us to be able to improve relationships.

59:32

That working relationship, that dialogue and communication is so important for our success on the pitch and our enjoyment of doing this job actually on the pitch.

59:42

I'm very grateful to Matt for coming on and being transparent on the podcast and again, you know, thank you so much for listening today.

59:49

Please, if you are, you know, willing, you know head to.

59:53

Refs need love tocom, you know, check out the merchants on the site.

59:58

Every purchase there gets poured back into this program.

1:00:00

Thank you for following me on tiktok and instant all the comments and and feedback and videos that you send my way.

1:00:07

You know, again, I can't do this without you. So thank you everyone and Matt, again, thank you so much.

1:00:12

There's been a wonderful conversation.