“That boy has been striking the ball very well,” Brian Darling says about George Davis IV during Louisville City’s draw against Indy XI in August 2018. Darling has been around the game for a long time – he earned his first USSF license back in 1979. Along the way, he has refereed games in various leagues including Major League Soccer (MLS), the United Soccer League (USL) and Premier Development League (PDL). These days, he serves in a different capacity. A role that many of us didn’t know even exists.

I first met Darling at a Louisville City match during LCFC’s playoffs in 2017. Slugger Field’s media room is largely (and understandably) reserved for LCFC staff and audio commentary. There’s a small room where local journalists, beat writers and nobody bloggers like myself congregate to watch the match. During one of LCFC’s playoff games, I saw this older gentleman taking notes on a white sheet of paper placed on a soccer clipboard.

Darling is a striking older gentleman. The most obvious thing you’d notice about the septuagenarian is his perfectly twirled mustache. If you stuck a three-piece suit and a hat on Darling, he would look like Peter Ustinov’s Hercule Poirot.

While the rest of us were reacting to LCFC’s fantastic ball movement in their expansive James O’Connor-inspired 3-4-3, Darling seemed to only react to stoppages in play, where he would jot down a few words. I introduced myself and learned that he was a referee assessor. “That’s a thing?” I asked.

“Well, of course!” Darling responded with a pause. He might as well have added “you dumbass” at the end of that sentence, because, I should know that that’s a thing. We should ALL know that that’s a thing.

Except, we don’t.

In researching this article, I was sent forms and documents galore that irrefutably negate a common misconception — the idea that USL referees have no incentive or repercussions for good or bad performances, respectively. The truth is, there are a multitude of metrics to ensure referee performance.

But before we get to those, let’s look over some basics about how refereeing is set up in U.S. Soccer.

The setup

Referees in American soccer all exist within a hierarchical structure. This structure ascribes a grade (1-8) to each referee based on experience and ability. Grade 8 referees are usually working youth and recreational soccer games, while Grade 7 referees having succeeded at the Grade 8 level are recognized by U.S. Soccer and selected by a Local Area Coordinator (LAC). Grade 7 referees oversee adult amateur soccer (think NPSL and PDL). After some time (usually at least a year) spent at Grade 7, referees move up to Grade 6 where one can referee at a state-wide level. Grade 6 and Grade 5 referees make up the bulk of referees at the USL level. Beyond Grade 5 is a whole set of interesting factoids — vis-a-vis the incredible achievements of these young men and women to reach MLS, FIFA and national team games.

There is also a well-known dearth of referees in the U.S. game. For example, there are believed to be only 120 referees at the Grade 4 (national) level.

However, for our purposes in this article, we will focus on Grade 5 and 6, as it pertains to the USL.

So, what are the requirements to be a referee at this level? Well, each state has its own tweaks to requirements, but Missouri’s Grade 6 referee requirements are pretty standard for various states. What we generally learn are that referees have to meet physical, experience-related and knowledge-related requirements that are subject to annual re-visitation. These referees attend clinics, conferences and performance reviews to stay at the top of their game.

Grading

So, let’s take a scenario. Tarouane Tellaini is a hypothetical USL player (arguably the greatest player of his generation) who slide tackles a player in the box. The crowd thinks it’s a penalty, the referee says no, and play continues. Replays show that Tellaini (in spite of undoubtedly being the greatest player of his generation) mistimed his tackle (after all, time is relative when you are a God) and the correct decision should have been a penalty.

What happens next? Does that referee get away with his poor decision?

Not quite.

You see, someone like Brian Darling is sitting somewhere, judging and marking down each important decision made by the refereeing team.

“The goal is to find three things they did well and three things they did poorly,” Darling tells me, running his hands across his mustache. “All refs at this level and higher are trying to improve.”

Darling writes down each key moment and after the match is over, he discusses those key moments with the entire refereeing team. He also shares his report with the USSF and each state referee association, and sometimes PRO (Professional Referee Organization). PRO and the other referee organizations can save those reports and key moments (in video format) in a huge database that is accessible to other referees.

But, what exactly is the assessment? Do these referees have repercussions for poor performances?

At the start of each game, each referee begins with an automatic score of 81. From this point on, points are subtracted for every incorrect decision. Decisions that are minor, such as misidentified corner kicks, result in a minor point deductions. Major decisions (identified as Critical Match Influence, or CMI) result in larger point deductions. These CMI include red cards and goals, and are pivotal to determining whether someone like Darling gives referees a passing grade for that game (a minimum score of 69 points). Additionally, these assessments are permanently attached to all referees; therefore, poor performances are not judged in an insular manner.

As Referee B — referenced below — tells us, “If I’m an AR and I miss an offside that leads to a goal, I would certainly not pass that assessment.”

If referees don’t pass their assessments, they are often reviewed by independent assessors, work-shopped with, and if they are repeat offenders, relegated to refereeing at a lower level. As Darling puts it, “They (referees who fail assessments) may not receive the same level of assignments and they may have to prove themselves to get these type of assignments again.”

So much for no repercussions.

The referee experience

Contrary to popular belief, referees are human beings. Humans that are doing their jobs. Humans that have families. Humans that hear you when you insult their families. Humans who continue to try to do their jobs in spite of what you say about their families.

Referees at the USL level get paid between $200-$500 per game, depending on their location and specialization (center referees get paid more than ARs). Therefore, all referees at the USL level have daytime jobs and referee part-time.

Soc Takes spoke to Referees A, B and C (names redacted to protect their identities):

Ref A – in USL, assistant referee in the Western Conference

Ref B – in USL, assistant referee in the Eastern Conference

Ref C – in USL, center referee in the Eastern Conference

All three referees spoke glowingly of the USL in terms of the growth in popularity and playing standards they have observed over the last few years. All three love the game and played at the high school and/or college level. When it comes to the torrents of abuse referees receive during and after every game, they are diplomatic, self-deprecating and understanding.

“I get it,” Ref C tells me via a Skype call. “They’re not there to see me. In their mind, my decisions can get in the way of what they’re paying to see. We’re used to the booing and the name-calling.”

Ref A is similarly unperturbed by abuse from fans. “Verbal abuse from fans doesn’t bother me,” but he also adds a disturbing addendum, “A referee I work with and train with was at a game where refs were physically assaulted.”

When I ask him for details. He hesitates. Worried that even bringing attention to the particular game will result in torrents of abuse from one set of fans.

He’s worried about people like you and me.

What about the managers? When I ask all three referees if they believe coaches should be fined in response to post-match criticism from referees, all three agree that managers should be allowed to criticize referee performance. However, as Ref A puts it, “There’s a line where some managers make it personal and say certain refs don’t belong in the league. That’s not OK.”

Yet referees continue to receive abuse every single game. Every game, they leave the stadium having annoyed at least one set of fans. Every game, their performance is scrutinized by fans, players, coaches, referee assessors and even front office staff.

And what is disturbing is that fans believe referees are untrained, uninterested and unrepentant.

As Ref B tells us, “I have to provide self-assessment based on watching every single game after the game. This is in addition to my normal life and job. This process takes 6-10 hours of preparation/evaluation for that 90-minute match. The biggest misconception I see is that fans think we just show up, ref and leave. And they’re completely wrong.”

After the game, Brian Darling walks out of the elevator with a box of local pizza in one hand and his referee assessment in the other. He tells me earlier that he usually grabs pizza for the refereeing crew and discusses his assessment with them over pizza.

As he walks towards the room where the referees are, a high-ranking member of Louisville City’s front office staff yells, “Please tell me you saw what happened, they (the referees) cost us two points.”

Darling makes eye contact with the front office member, but, says nothing. He’s unperturbed by the absurd (and inaccurate) assertion.

As his doppelganger Poirot once said in Death of The Nile, “It is not the past that matters, but the future.”

Multiple attempts to contact PRO for comment on this article were unsuccessful.

Update – In response to this article, PRO reached out to Soc Takes.

Follow Nipun on Twitter: NipunChopra7.

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