Shockingly, an import; as if the U.S. referees market has no talent. We'll see how Walton impacts the stale MLS group of refs in thie first quarter of the season..

This is sorely needed. The level of professionalism of MLS refs must be higher. It impacts the quality of the games for fans and deters foreign players from coming over. Expansion has only made a bad problem worse.

I haven't noticed British refs setting any world standards lately. Collina would have been a great choice, but I'm guessing he cost too much sadly.

A British ref. running the U.S. ref. training program? His first rule---"the player has to be bleeding before you issue a yellow card to the other player."

I understand the protectionist reaction from American fans when it comes to British migration, but I don't think it is merited with respect to improving our refereeing. What out referees lack is appropriate discretion. It is easy to teach our referees the rules of the game and which fouls we want them to enforce. It is much harder to use one's discretion evenly, consistently, and fairly. The EPL is one of the most difficult leagues to referee because teams want to be able to play and sort things out themselves. British referees have a strong record of using discretion appropriately and can offer much to prospective American referees in that respect - especially since our referees fundamentally lack that understanding due to a lack of experience refereeing top level matches. Statements made here that the EPL is excessively physical and that English referees don't can fouls are frankly misplaced.