Referees
Program Overview
The NorCal Premier Referee Program aims to elevate refereeing in Northern California by:
- Growing the number of referees to provide a qualified match official for every NorCal match
- Improving referee performance through education and mentoring
- Changing the culture of coach, parent, player, and referee behavior
Growing the Number of Referees
Since our return to play following the COVID-19 Pandemic, Northern California has been operating with 40% fewer referees than we had before the shutdown. While much of this loss can be attributed to the pandemic itself, there are many factors that have contributed to the shortage including an increased registration demand as well as continued high levels of churn in our referee pool. Regardless of the reasons, each weekend clubs all over Northern California are scrambling to provide qualified match officials for their games.
NorCal Premier seeks to assist clubs in developing their referee pools by sponsoring referee courses for FREE. By working with NorCal to run your referee course, we will cover the costs of the course and work directly with CNRA to schedule and book the instructors. Over the past year, NorCal has sponsored over 150 referee courses for our clubs, training over 3,000 new referees.
If you are interested in hosting a referee course, click on the “Request a Course” link in the left-hand menu.
Additionally, this fall NorCal Premier will be launching the “Be a Referee” campaign aimed at recruiting thousands of players, parents and others to become referees. In addition to recruiting at our events, our aim will be to provide clubs with best practices and resources to increase the size of their referee pool. For more information click the “Be a Referee” link on the left hand menu.
Improve Referee Performance
In addition to not having enough referees, many of the referees that we have lost were our most experienced and highest quality. Speaking with assignors across the state, one of the consistent challenges they face is finding appropriately experienced referees for higher-level matches such as NorCal ECNL RL and NPL games.
To train the next generation of referees, NorCal Premier is working directly with CNRA to provide continuing education to referees who are seeking to advance in the game. This involves access to high-level training programs, regular training webinars, and mentoring at NorCal Premier events. For referees interested in learning more about these programs reach out to Aidon Jennery at ajennery@norcalpremier.com.
Changing the Culture
The largest issue that we face in the refereeing space at the minute is the fact that we lose over 50% of our new referees each year. While some of this is natural turnover, the vast majority of this churn is due to the treatment that referees are often subjected to in their first few matches. NorCal Premier is working with our clubs, leaders, and directly with parents, players, and coaches to change the culture on our sidelines. In the fall of 2024, we will be launching an ambitious project with Soccer Parenting to provide clubs, coaches, and parents with resources and tools to provide a more positive environment not just for our referees, but also for our players. Check our Parent Resource Page for more information as we launch this project.
While sideline behavior is an issue that we will seek to address seriously, we also know that accountability goes both ways, and changing the behavior of our referees is also important. As such we will be seeking to build referee accountability into all of our competitions. Building comprehensive accountability systems will take time but for the fall of 2024, we will be launching a Referee Reporting form, which will allow club leaders and team officials to report issues with referees in NorCal matches. While a small start, we hope that this will help us work with referee assignors to identify and educate referees on best practices and improve the quality of refereeing.
