A player so aggressively approaches a professional referee that the ref has to raise his arms in a protective gesture. If you think that referee would obviously yellow-card the player — for “dissent by word or action” — you’d be wrong.
Tune in to games from around the world and in nearly each one you’ll witness unpunished dissent and the disgraceful ref-mobbing that such leniency normalizes. But one needn’t look far.
In the Seattle-LAFC playoff game, Referee Ted Unkel had to raise his hands to fend off João Paulo but didn’t caution the Seattle midfielder (top left photo). In a Seattle-FC Dallas game two weeks earlier, João Paulo charged similarly at Fotis Bazakos and wasn’t cautioned for that either (bottom right). Nor did Vancouver’s Ryan Gauld get yellow-carded by ref Tim Ford (bottom left).
To be clear, I don’t blame MLS referees for soccer’s shameful tolerance of players abusing officials. They’re constantly being assessed by their employer, the Professional Referee Organization. One of PRO’s aims is to continue adding Americans to the FIFA International ref corps and seeing them assigned to World Cups. Hence PRO is likely to assess refs according to FIFA’s expectations. I’m also wary of criticizing the MLS crews that have had to cope with so much crude play. Unkel had to whistle 32 fouls and he handed out six yellow cards. Each of the four MLS quarterfinals featured at least 30 fouls called for a total of 123 — on average that’s more than a foul every three minutes.
Only one of last Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League games had more than 30 fouls and the eight games averaged 21 fouls per game. The Champions League games weren’t being officiated stricter than MLS, whose players tackled more cynically and less adeptly.
The MLS refs in those four games handed out 21 yellow cards, and one red card. The UCL refs showed one red and their yellows in eight games averaged 3.5 per game compared to MLS’s 5.25.
The UCL refs weren’t any less tolerant of dissent than their MLS counterparts. But it would be even less likely to expect MLS refs to be the bold ones and enforce cautions for dissent (not to mention the also ignored caution for persistent infringement). They’re already carding so much for fouls, dissent cards would lead to reds. World soccer culture tends to highlight the refs when games descend into to short-handed affairs. In fact, the refs are often blamed when it’s the players’ behavior that besmirches the sport.
Coaches, TV commentators and the media ensure that in the aftermath of woeful soccer such as delivered by the MLS quarterfinals — which produced 1.25 goals per game — the focus turns on the refs.
I can imagine an MLS referee being especially resistant to becoming the first ref on a big stage to shed the fear of the reaction when he or she cautions every dissenter as “Laws of the Game” stipulate and shows the red cards that would follow. (It’s common that immediately after cautioned for a foul, players react with dissent that should warrant another caution, yet are allowed to remain on the field.)
A decade after MLS instituted a ‘mass confrontation’ rule, the league’s most notable reaction to that behavior this season has been more frequent retroactive fines from the MLS Disciplinary Committee “for an undisclosed amount” — after the first violation gets an “official warning.” The repeat offenders and the abuse MLS playoff refs have had to endure shows how ineffective that approach has been.
IFAB’s announcing this week its quest to “improve participant behavior” and address the problem of short-handed games by considering “sin-bin” trials (temporary dismissal for “dissent and specific tactical offenses”) could be hailed if we weren’t familiar with how glacially the wheels of FIFA’s rule-makers turn.
Details weren’t revealed. We got vague statements such as: “.. the better management of mass confrontations were also amongst the measures discussed, with further trials to be developed.” But there are surely plenty of ways to prevent short-handed play while vetting justice. Other sports manage it, as they have the dissent issue, which IFAB says its “sin-bin” consideration would address. Indeed, soccer needs to provide referees with “more weapons” — as Anson Dorrance put in a 2022 interview while suggesting sin bins.
• SA Reading (May, 2012, By Paul Gardner): Soccer’s insane rule: forcing a team to play short-handed
IFAB has also announced its “support” of a proposed trial on only the team captains being allowed to approach the referee in “certain game situations” in an attempt to curtail dissent.
The captain rule needing a trial is tantamount to delaying the use of water to extinguish fires pending further studies.
Coming up with a suitable change to the current red-card punishment — how about a team can replace its ejected player but yields a penalty kick for the red-card offense — needs careful consideration. But ending the mobbing and dissent that embarrasses the sport and infects youth soccer can be done overnight.
A captain-only rule — in hockey it’s “only the Captain, when invited to do so by the referee, shall have the privilege of discussing any point relating to the interpretation of rules” — should be implemented by soccer. But dissent in general could be squelched if FIFA directed all its refs implement its own “laws” — and have their back during the sport’s transition to civilized behavior, which won’t take long. Pro athletes are smart enough to gauge boundaries when they’re made clear.
Otherwise, the latest IFAB announcement recalls all the other empty promises of the past.
2013 — MLS institutes ‘mass confrontation’ rule
2015 — PRO directs MLS refs to focus on dissent and persistent infringement
2016 — UEFA warns against referee ‘mobbing’
2016 — MLS: There will be an emphasis on dissent by action: “running up to referees and players to argue or wild gesticulations.”
2017 — FIFA to clamp down on mobbing of ref
2018 — IFAB considers instructions to referees to caution players sooner for dissent.
2020 — IFAB will continue to look at measures within the Laws of the Game to tackle mobbing of match officials
2023 — Scene from MLS:
In 2011, when Pierluigi Collina was UEFA’s head of referees, he said: “We don’t want to see referees mobbed by players, where players run from long distances to crowd the ref. This could even be punished by a red card. Certainly one of the things we need to improve is stopping this kind of behavior. It’s not nice to see.”
Collina is now the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee and an IFAB Technical Subcommittee member.
Upon this week’s IFAB announcement on addressing dissent, Collina said the proposed trials would “very probably” involve professional soccer: “We need to draft something that works or is worthy for top football.”
That’s how far we’ve come in a dozen years.
Ref Coverage around the Web
1. Christina Unkel: Ref, lawyer and broadcaster moves into club presidency By Dan Woog (Soccer America)
2. The Simplest Game. Not. By Beau Dure (Soccer America)
3. Soccer has a refereeing ‘epidemic’ — just not the one you think By Henry Bushnell (Yahoo Sports)
4. Offside? Handball? Christina Unkel on controversial MLS calls from the weekend (Morning Footy)
5. What is VAR, how does it work and what are the biggest problems? By Karl Matchett (The Independent)
6. PRO’s Inside Video Review With Greg Barkey (MLS | MLS (Spanish)
7. MLS could be be first pro league to trial ‘sin bins’ in soccer after lawmakers back trials By Matt Slater (The Athletic)