U.S. Soccer expanded its referee department leadership in April of 2024 when Kari Seitz became its first Vice President of Refereeing. The new role marked a homecoming for Seitz, who had spent the previous eight years with Switzerland-based FIFA, most recently as Head of Refereeing, Women. Before overseeing refereeing for 15 FIFA world championship events, Seitz officiated at four Women’s World Cups and three Olympics. In the era before full-time pro reffing in the USA, Seitz in 1998-2013 officiated in MLS, WUSA, WPS and the NWSL while working as a full-time advertising executive.
We spoke with Seitz, who is charged with growing the nation’s corps of referees, shortly after U.S. Soccer unveiled its strengthened “Referee Abuse Prevention” policy, which includes detailed consequences for offenses by players and coaches in American youth and amateur soccer.
SOCCER AMERICA: What were you challenged with achieving when U.S. Soccer hired you?
KARI SEITZ: Grow the number of referees. Because we have to meet the current need while knowing we have to put the U.S. in a position to grow the game. We’ve got the Club World Cup and World Cup coming and we’re anticipating the exponential growth of soccer. If we don’t have the number of referees needed for the game today, we certainly won’t in the future.
The bigger question is where to start. I recognized a few things we had to tackle. One is changing culture. Fundamentally it’s going to be hard to grow referees if they’re working in the same culture. It isn’t working.
Truly, my mission is to establish refereeing as an essential and respected part of the success of soccer in our country. We’re not more important than the games, but we’re a service to the game. If you want to attract people to give back and participate you have to treat it as essential and respect it.
In our office, we ask what can we do to service the game? We need to create a really strong foundation. We have to have a pathway where we can get more coaches and mentors for referees.
SA: Ten months into your tenure, U.S. Soccer announced the strengthing of its Referee Abuse Prevention policy. Before we discuss that, what were your experiences with abuse?
KARI SEITZ: I had a trifecta of challenges. I was younger, small in stature, and female. You walk to the field and they assume that you know nothing. It’s a cultural bias.
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