Referee Dilemma – Part 3

I’m satisfied. Not quite that perfect, but its there. Above satisfactory. On the recent concluded MY-NPL in MAPAAC, the level of refereeing is good. At least at field 1, where D1 and D2 players games were.

Generally, I find the referees are being lenient. It’s not a bad thing really, but somewhat players will try to get away from getting penalties. I mean, I saw some. Surely some of you also did. Eventually the player either gets shot or penalize; but slightly too late and damages had already been done (playing on and affecting gameplay)

Okay, here’s an example that happened to me. My teammate got shot in the loader on the break and continued shooting. With the thunderous sound of seven guns shooting, I guess he didn’t hear the loader got hit and continued shooting. About 10 seconds later, the referee came and pulled him out, and he didn’t get any penalties (which is 1-for-1 for playing on with obvious hit).

The referee was being very lenient and we were relieved that he didn’t call for a penalty. I mean, even if we did get it still OK. You played on, you get a penalty. That’s it. It occurred to me that, what if we indeed get the penalty, the result will probably be different. We might get rundown quickly soon afterwards cause we lost couple of bodies early in the game.

You see how this will affect the outcome of a game. Playing on is very damaging to the general outcome of the match. So, referee should really be alert. I’ve heard referees from other leagues or promoters are rewarded with cash for pulling 1-for-1 penalties.

Where’s the sense of integrity? It only takes a few drunken refs (at players party) to spill the beans out. Although we don’t mind getting penalize for the right reasons, we hate it even more when referees simply wouldn’t admit their fault or simply say ‘I’m sorry’ for a bad call they themselves acknowledged. Owe it to yourself, you call the shots, and if you’re wrong - admit it! That being said, we all can leave the field and get prepared for the next game.

Back in MY-NPL, I’ve heard that our Head Referee, Mohsin was unhappy when refs didn’t pull a 1-for-1 when clearly he has the right to do so. That got him worked up and he went in the field to help out as well. If you noticed, during the later stages of the tournament, he was right there in the thick of the action. Kudos! It’s great to see hard he’s trying to raise the standard of refereeing.

Some communications between the referees might need to be work on I suppose. There are a few communications between them that got misinterpreted by the crowd and players as giving out players positions. We experienced it ourselves last year and after an explanation from the head ref, its all good.

So in summary, there is always a room for improvement. I’m not targeting specific referee groups but as a whole.

1. Integrity - Be true and uphold the rule the best you can
2. Humble - Ready to admit fault if there are any
3. Alert - Watching the players, not the game.
4. Conviction - Especially when making penalty calls.

I'm pretty sure there are other values out there, but these are just my version. The first two points can also be applied to players in general. We could make this sport a gentlemen’s game if we have these two values.

Sometime in April, there will be a clinic by Dan Perez of former NPPL and now the USPL. This will be very educational. I hope to be able to join this.

Meanwhile, anybody interested in becoming a referee, please check out this link. Also check out this video featuring MPRO(Malaysian Paintball Referee Organization) highlights on 8TV, May 31,2008.

Note: I wanted to include something about the declining number of referees that could potentially hurt the sport and ways to overcome this. I didn’t see any problems yet so far and I’ll hold this next post about refs for some other time.