In response to Soc Takes’ recent article on referee assessment, we were contacted by PRO Referees to further expand on the refereeing conversation. Soc Takes also spoke to PRO general manager Howard Webb – arguably one of the best known retired referees worldwide – about USL’s role in the institution of Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

(Note: This interview has been edited for clarity.)

How many total registered referees are there in America. How many referee assessors/coaches are there?

According to U.S. Soccer’s records:

Number of registered referees for 2018: 138,891

Number of assessors for 2018: 1,303

Number of instructors and National Referee Coaches in 2018

Instructors/State Instructors: 1,691

National Referee Coaches: 112

How many referees are there at the various grade levels in the United States.

Grade 1: 8

Grade 2: 16

Grade 3: 58

Grade 4: 70

Grade 5: 213

Grade 6: 1,615

Grade 7: 11,190

Grade 8: 125,721

What is the defined role of PRO?

Who We Are

The Professional Referee Organization is an independent company responsible for administering professional referee programs in North America.

What We Do

We are dedicated to the identification, training, assessment, assignment, and employment of male and female professional soccer officials. We provide our services to North American professional soccer leagues, CONCACAF and FIFA competitions.

PRO Mission Statement

To supply World Class Match Officials for all professional soccer in North America.

PRO Vision

To become the example for World Class soccer officials by 2022.

While I was able to get a pretty good understanding of it via talking to referees, could you, from PRO’s perspective, explain the requirements of the “grade sheet”. Specifically, how positive points/negative points are awarded to referees based on their performance in a game. I understand, it starts at 81, and you get points deducted for incorrect decisions that affect the game. How subjective is that evaluation?

Our assessment program is based on 2 main sections: 1) Overall performance, and 2) Key Match Incidents (KMIs). Overall performance consists of position-specific competencies and behaviors, with six main categories for Referees: Match control, Player management, Game management, Teamwork, Positioning, and Movement. Assistant Referees are evaluated on four main categories: Offside, Involvement and Assistance, Positioning, and Movement.

Fourth officials are evaluated on Management of the technical areas and Assistance to the referee team. Officials can earn additional points if they perform better than a good-acceptable level.

Outside those categories, we focus on Key Match Incidents (KMIs) e.g. penalty kick, send off, offside for goals or obvious goal-scoring situations. Incorrect key match incidents (i.e. incorrectly given or missed) will lower an official’s grade to varying degrees depending on the difficulty of the decision. The base score for working to PRO’s good-acceptable performance in a standard difficulty match is 82. Officials can also benefit when a game is ranked challenging or very challenging in difficulty. They will start at a higher base score in those matches.

How are referees trained to handle the myriad of criticism that is sent their way after virtually every game?

What we are telling our officials is to analyze the game they just officiated and write a self-evaluation that is reviewed with their coach. After these reviews and learning points are accepted, it’s important to set this game aside and move on with a fresh mind to their next assignment. Bringing your mistakes with you when officiating your next game never works well, just as players do not perform well in their next game if they linger and dwell on past mistakes.

PRO has also provided our officials with access to a sport psychologist who helps them deal with various stressors they encounter pre- and post-match, including public criticism.

It is easy to have an opinion and even easier to express that opinion in today’s environment, but it is the officials who have put in the time to hone their craft and deliver games week in and week out that are putting themselves on the front lines. Knowing that gap exists between general opinion and actually doing the job every week helps put that criticism in perspective.

there are many fans and journalists who believe referees should have to explain their decisions to the public after games. What is PRO’s reaction to that?

You can find pros and cons when thinking about this idea. While senior officials may be better equipped to handle the media following games given the right training, it is a different situation when it comes to young, upcoming officials from the PRO Development Group. They are just becoming accustomed to officiating in a much more public light given all the social media scrutiny, but having to explain decisions after games to the public carries a much bigger burden that starts to come away from explaining decisions from a basis of Law and more towards being put “on trial” for decisions that will very often be subjective in nature.

There are already processes in place that allow pool reporters to ask questions directly to the officials, which provides the public some understanding about why a particular decision was made from a Law perspective.

Is there truly a referee shortage in America? And what steps is PRO taking to address this issue?

The referee shortage across sports in the U.S. is well known, with the root causes being similar in soccer as in other sports. The retention of young officials due to a lack of sportsmanship from parents, coaches, and players has been identified across sports as a major issue, leading to upwards of 50% turnover after the first or second years of officiating.

It is difficult to provide continuing education to advance officials when training and development resources must be focused disproportionately on entry levels over time. When the number of teams, leagues, and matches at all levels continues to grow at a high rate, but the rate of officials staying involved stagnates, a gap develops very quickly. We know from officiating surveys that quality mentoring is a major component of retention. U.S. Soccer works diligently to provide guidance and education to member states to implement high quality mentoring programs, and PRO supports these efforts wherever possible with both our staff and active officials.

What is the relationship between referee coaches from PRO v LACs assigned by US soccer?

The National Assignors (they are no longer called “LACs”) are very important to PRO as we rely on them to provide quality officials for some positions in the leagues that PRO services, particularly when there are limited travel budgets, last-minute replacements are required due to travel disruptions, or our PRO pool is stretched thin in certain weeks of high volume.

PRO referee coaches have often worked with National Assignors in the past (for example as officiating colleagues) so there is a healthy network of familiar faces to help identify upcoming talent and ensure opportunities exist for that talent to start down the path of working professional games. The PRO Development Group Assignor Assistant, Brenda Wright, is in constant contact with National Assignors to help facilitate a cooperative environment and coordinate assignments that keep the pipeline fresh.

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Conversation with Howard Webb:

In your interview with Grant Wahl a year ago, you discussed how VAR was trialed in the USL. Can you comment on some of the lessons learned during that time, and whether the league was easy to work with?

We have an excellent working relationship with USL and it’s Senior Management Team. The opportunity to test Video Review in competitive games, played within stadia with fans in attendance, was vitally important in familiarizing our officials in correct use of the VAR protocol and procedures, in understanding the logistical requirements in-venue to make Video Review run smoothly and efficiently, and in assisting us to understanding the best way of ensuring the various stakeholders were kept informed of proceedings.

Could PRO comment on whether VAR – which was tried out in the USL – will be used in the league in the future?

That’s ultimately a decision for USL. However, I would like to acknowledge USL’s contribution to the successful implementation of VAR in North America…the league played an important part in the testing of the system in 2016 and the early part of 2017.

(Soc Takes reached out to USL on October 15th to determine whether the league was interested in re-introducing VAR in the future. The league had not responded at the time of publishing).

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