This March soccer tournament season has generated a lot of material for me to write about. I had forgotten to mention previously something that happened during a small tournament I worked a couple of weeks ago.
I had reached out, last minute, to an assignor to see if he needed help and told him where my daughter was going to be playing, in case he needed help at those fields around the time I would be there anyway with my child. Sure enough, he sends me a "standby" assignment later that day. It is basically an assignment that requires you be at a site and see if anyone else doesn't show or gets hurt. Then you step in.
The week before this tournament, I was working another tournament and while en route to that tournament, there was a huge traffic accident. I called the assignor as well as the other two people I was working with to let them know that with the accident, I would probably not make it for kick off. Indeed, I arrived about 5 minutes after kick off. They had a standby referee and he took my spot for that game. These things happen and I was fine with it as I was not there at kick off. What was interesting there is that the center for that match told me that the spare stated that if he took the spot, it would be his for that game, that if I arrived, he would not "switch out" or be replaced. Again it makes sense to me, since he was there and I was not.
So fast forward to the weekend where I was the standby again, and 8am rolls around and there are 2 referees for one crew and the third is nowhere to be found, so I am asked to step in. 5 minutes before half time, the 3rd referee shows up. He walks over to me and askes me to swap right then and there, while ball is in play. I said not to worry, that we can talk at halftime. He takes a couple of steps back and just stands there for the remainder of the half.
At halftime, he insists that it is his game and that I need to go back to being a standby. I frankly did not care as this was not a high level assignment so I hand him my flag. Then I notice his badge. It did not say "Referee", it said "National Emeritus Referee". So at some moment, this guy was high level. I would have thought that he would have had more idea of what to do and what not to do with regards to missing an appointment. My feeling is that he should have backed off just like I had the week before, but I was not going to cause a stink like the guy who replaced me apparently did.
I don't know, whose game is it? The one who was originally assigned, regardless if they arrive late or the guy who is stepping into their shoes because the original person was not there at the start of the game? Let me know in your comments.
3 comments:
Bluntly, your situation would never happen along the Front Range of Colorado. Our Assignors set the expectation that a referee needs to check in to the referee tent. If you are running late due to any reason EXCEPT for your previous game running late on another field, you are replaced by a standby. End of story. No contention over "whose game is it anyway."
If you are replaced because you could not be at your assignment and you are subbed then you are DONE!
It's not fair to the sub that started the game. What kind of pay system could you use if you let the originally assigned referee tak over the game? Once you miss the start and a sub is used I say you are now the Wally Pip of the match,
In this tournament, I expect to not be paid extra for that half that I did. But it just happened to be that one week, I was the one arriving late, and fully expected to be replaced for that match (but not for the rest of my assignments) and then the next week, I am the one replacing someone else and he expects to take my place during the match. Once I see how they pay things out, I will update the comments.
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