A couple sources have told me the SFSFL is not doing very well at the moment. Last year it lost a number of teams due to fee hikes. This year they seem to pay 150% more then a local youth league in the interest of fair opportunity to other groups and organizations.
For the last few years it seems the City of San Francisco has been making it hard on the league as they raise the costs to play on the fields. The sad part is they do very little to maintain the fields as players and referees get injured.
Their Premier division, CPSA, was playing at Boxer Stadium until a few years back when they moved to Kezar stadium. Unfortunately that was short lived and they moved to the neighboring Daly City to play at Jefferson high school to keep up with costs.
SFSFL of course contributes to their own problems by the collections of fees. You can view the latest checks and balances here. It really hard to run a league when teams can't or won't pay their fees.
The combination of the two may destroy the league that has been around longer then the Bay to Breakers. This will not only hurt the players, but it will also hurt plenty of referees who are trying to move up the ranks. This is the middle ground from youth to professional (CPSA is considered by USSF as a semi-professional league). If that bridge is burned then there is only one Amateur league that will take the referees, but will make it hard to move up due to the number of referees vs. number of games. If the ones who got thinned out already due to the USSF changes but has been contemplating on making a comeback would be more discouraged.
I know it's after Christmas but the quote fits, "Only a Miracle can save them now."
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Mandatory Training for Grade 8's
I received word that a certain district in Cal-North want to enforce the fact that all grade 8 referees (and up) need to have 5 hours in service training to keep up with the laws of the game. There is no definite statement on what happens if you choose not to go, but it is assumed you will not be assigned games or be put on a lower priority.
Personally I am fond of everyone sitting in at least one clinic to refresh on new law changes, procedures, directives and so forth. This was extremely lacking in my local club though not lacking in our district. I myself have attended at least one clinic a year which I usually can take something out to improve my game. Of course it is mandatory for me. There is of course a refresher exam. The requirements are copied here
While it is a USSF requirement, it is not an enforced in Cal North. Why? Because we are hurting for referees. We are always hurting and it shows every time you either see a game without 3 officials or you have officials in a game that is over their head.
I'm going to give you some rough statistics as I pulled them from 2006 stats. Roughly 95% of the referees in Cal North are grade 8. The rest are grade 7 and up and emeritus. There are a lot of grade 8's out there who put out the bare minimum (that's not saying much) effort. Start to enforce this requirement will run more referees out of the program. USSF is already doing a bang up job of that with last year's increase of fees. I even know of a former Grade 5 referee who says he cannot pay the fees (Hello USSF, we're in a bad economy here) so he won't even go Emeritus. Why? The fees are the same. Yes he saves 50 bucks in assessment fees, but there is the princable behind it. Grade 8's are paying 40 bucks. A couple of years ago it was 25. With a good handful of Grade 8's being youth, you think they can afford 40 bucks? I noticed a sharper decline in referees 2 years experience and up due to this.
In summary, I would make it a requirement, but if they do not show for the clinic, instead of dropping them out completely, just give them a lower priority in assignment. I know of a certain league that has an annual clinic and if you don't show, this is what happens.
This gets too hardassed in the requirements we will be going back in time to the days where it was either solo or two man because there are not enough referees.
Personally I am fond of everyone sitting in at least one clinic to refresh on new law changes, procedures, directives and so forth. This was extremely lacking in my local club though not lacking in our district. I myself have attended at least one clinic a year which I usually can take something out to improve my game. Of course it is mandatory for me. There is of course a refresher exam. The requirements are copied here
While it is a USSF requirement, it is not an enforced in Cal North. Why? Because we are hurting for referees. We are always hurting and it shows every time you either see a game without 3 officials or you have officials in a game that is over their head.
I'm going to give you some rough statistics as I pulled them from 2006 stats. Roughly 95% of the referees in Cal North are grade 8. The rest are grade 7 and up and emeritus. There are a lot of grade 8's out there who put out the bare minimum (that's not saying much) effort. Start to enforce this requirement will run more referees out of the program. USSF is already doing a bang up job of that with last year's increase of fees. I even know of a former Grade 5 referee who says he cannot pay the fees (Hello USSF, we're in a bad economy here) so he won't even go Emeritus. Why? The fees are the same. Yes he saves 50 bucks in assessment fees, but there is the princable behind it. Grade 8's are paying 40 bucks. A couple of years ago it was 25. With a good handful of Grade 8's being youth, you think they can afford 40 bucks? I noticed a sharper decline in referees 2 years experience and up due to this.
In summary, I would make it a requirement, but if they do not show for the clinic, instead of dropping them out completely, just give them a lower priority in assignment. I know of a certain league that has an annual clinic and if you don't show, this is what happens.
This gets too hardassed in the requirements we will be going back in time to the days where it was either solo or two man because there are not enough referees.
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