GAA Referees

LazyPaddy

Hi All..
I have started a website to critique referees. It is not intended nor will it be tolerated to abuse referees. We are looking to rank and comment, both good and bad, on referees around the country. The site is in it's infancy and only has Kildare referees at the minute, but I will be adding any referee that the public request. I would like to invite referees to give a biography of themselves and to be involved in their comments.
I hope that this will give an honest public view of refereeing. There is no other GAA site like this at the minute and I think it could help improve the standard of refereeing at all levels. All suggestions are welcome in the "Suggestion Box" forum on the website.

[SNIP]

Thanks

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

LazyPaddy wrote: »

Hi All..
I have started a website to critique referees. It is not intended nor will it be tolerated to abuse referees. We are looking to rank and comment, both good and bad, on referees around the country. The site is in it's infancy and only has Kildare referees at the minute, but I will be adding any referee that the public request. I would like to invite referees to give a biography of themselves and to be involved in their comments.
I hope that this will give an honest public view of refereeing. There is no other GAA site like this at the minute and I think it could help improve the standard of refereeing at all levels. All suggestions are welcome in the "Suggestion Box" forum on the website.

[SNIP]

Thanks

I would advise getting permission from the individuals before putting their names on a public web site, as when people talk about refs, 95% of the time its how they got this and that wrong. Combine that with the nature of people who post on forums, just to complain.

Not a bad idea for a site, but i would advise you preview every comment that is posted, to keep the "the ref is a stupid cnut" comments off the site. after all, refs are people too, and we all make mistakes!

keane2097

Good luck.

keane2097

Must say it's going to be difficult for the site to work in the carnation you currently suggest, as your ratings are based on public opinion.

The only people who will be interested in rating referees after matches will be people with grievances, so I'd be surprised if any referee ends up with a rating of over two with any sort of decent sample size.

I don't know what the best bet would be but public opinion and a simple 1-5 ranking system won't yield anything valid.

I'd suggest a system whereby an admin reads all criticisms sent in by fans and collates them into a description of each referee which is informed by fans' submissions as a possible improvement.

hisholinessnb

keane2097 wrote: »

The only people who will be interested in rating referees after matches will be people with grievances

100% agree with this, just another forum to abuse refs.
Whether that's the intention or not, this is what will happen.

If things continue the way they are going we will see games regularly postponed as they cannot find enough refs.

These people are devoted GAA men and do their very best to provide an essential part of our games.
Some make mistakes, some make bad mistakes, but they are human beings and so much goes on in a game they are bound to make mistakes.

Its time we stopped criticising and gave them some respect, most of these guys are better GAA men than the people who abuse them.

I'm not a ref by the way

bruschi

hisholinessnb wrote: »

100% agree with this, just another forum to abuse refs.
Whether that's the intention or not, this is what will happen.

If things continue the way they are going we will see games regularly postponed as they cannot find enough refs.

These people are devoted GAA men and do their very best to provide an essential part of our games.
Some make mistakes, some make bad mistakes, but they are human beings and so much goes on in a game they are bound to make mistakes.

Its time we stopped criticising and gave them some respect, most of these guys are better GAA men than the people who abuse them.

I'm not a ref by the way

+1 on all that. especailly that all it will do is be a place for fans to vent fury at refs.

the worst thing is, that in most cases, the refs have not actually made a wrong decision, but the lack of knowledge of rules from players/supporters means they are on his back and in the wrong. there are obviously some glaring errors refs make, but bar a very few amount of games, I dont believe refs influence resutls as much as people make out.

case in point, Wexford footballers felt hard done by losing to Limerick. dodgy point, and non existant foul to get it. But personally, I think it was the players who lost it. that was just one point Limerick scored. Now granted, the ref had a shocker all game, both ways, and critical scores were got as a result, but it was there for Wexford to win themselves, in spite of the refs performance, and when they didnt, he was made scapegoat. I would be looking more at the fact we were 6 points and a man up with 5 minutes to go. The ref didnt kick 1-4 for Limerick nor did he go missing in defense for Wexford. Too often it is easier to blame a ref, than your own performance. (I dont mean for this to be a discussion on said game, just using it as an example that it was the players who lost it rather than a poor performing ref).

You will have other games then like the louth one, and whilst unbelievably frustrating, you can not condone what happened after. Players and pundits are always calling for consitant reffing, well refs deserve respect, and if they get that then we should also see more consistency.

LazyPaddy

Thanks everyone for the responses. I genuinely do not want this to be a place for people to vent anger to referees. I really hope that people would compliment a referee when they have a good game. It's like when people discuss a game and they say that "Jimmy was great in full back this week, but had a shocker last week." If they can logon to compliment a player i don't know why they wouldn't do that for a ref.
Being a player for over 15 years, I have come accross my fair share of good and bad refs, but there is no accountability for them. There is no scoring system to say a ref is good or bad. In every job there is a metric for how good you are doing. Why not have one for referees???
I take on the point of not having the names on the site but they are publically disclosed on the GAA sites already. I am hoping that the referees would get on board with the idea and I have no problem letting a referee moderate their area.

bruschi

referees have their own assesors, done by themselves. and to be honest, they are probably the best ones to judge. its a good idea you have, but as always happens with any sort of 'feedback' for something, you never hear of the good things. take a look at the 'speak to' forums here. all it is, is people complaining about services, rare to see anyone come on to compliment on a good service. its just the nature of the way things are.

LazyPaddy

I can genuinely see everyones point..but what I'm trying to get to is that people will get to the stage and comment regardless of what the verdict is i.e. good or bad.
How about this then...any GaaRefs.com member can give a rank (with no comment), but if I can get 1 person from each club/county to be a verified moderator they can post their comments on the ref for each game. That way you get the winning and losing side of the opinion as well as a public ranking system???
Do you think I would get 1 club member to do this?? I would like to get a county board member to do the inter-county comments..whats the chances.
Like I said I DO NOT want a "slate the ref" site. I want accountability, honest public opinion and for the genuine good refs to get the recognition they deserve. Anyone interested in giving a hand in it???

rebel girl 15

You'd want to get permission from every referee that you have up on that before anyone posts a comment on it, even though their names are associated with the games already - tbh I think its a very poor idea, as it will end up as a place to slate referees who have bad games. There won't be anyone coming on to praise a referee at all. I wouldn't be getting involved in it at all, huge potential for slander cases as a result of it if you leave people post comments about referees, if you collate the comments and post them then you are leaving yourself wide open. These guys are giving up their free time to referee matches and for someone to have a forum where people can "rate" them? I don't think you would be long waiting for a referee to get onto you if someone has posted that they had a poor game and the ref wants you to take it down.

Bruschi hit the nail on the head "the refs have not actually made a wrong decision, but the lack of knowledge of rules from players/supporters means they are on his back and in the wrong" I agree 100% with that, which is why I said about referees coming on and asking you to take down posts.

I don't think your idea about one person from each county or club being a moderator and stating about the referee, anyone you do get to be fair will be a little bit biased to their own club or county. TBH, I've been involved in county board things from the ladies side, and there is not a hope that the board would get involved in critiquing a referee after a game. A referee sees that a CB member has slated them over a game, or a club member has slated them, then there will be reports about it

As for your point about no accountability or no metric for referees, there is, especially at intercounty. Every game those referees are assessed, each year they would undergo fitness testing and testing on their knowledge of the rules - thats why there is such a small panel of them. They give up their free time train as well as holding down day jobs and more than likely being involved in their local clubs. they head to Croke Park a number of times a year to review rules and go through different issues.

Its up to each CB to look after their own referees and train them to where they need to be. For most counties, there are referee assessors, but because there are so few referees, then some referees who are probably not up to the standard are left refereeing, simply because of numbers. Its up to the individual boards to arrange training days etc for referees and in cases where they know a referee is poor, then ensure he is at the courses or stop giving him games until he completes a course.

Good referees get recognition - they get the semi finals and finals of major competitions, thats how they get their recognition, and I know that from experience

Cill Dara Abu

They do not need any referees permission, they put themselves in the public eye therefore they have to take the good with the bad. They don't ask for players permission so why referees?

rebel girl 15

Cill Dara Abu wrote: »

They do not need any referees permission, they put themselves in the public eye therefore they have to take the good with the bad. They don't ask for players permission so why referees?

Because referees are paid to do a job, would anybody else being paid to do a job like their job performance critiqued on an internet site by people who in my experience have little knowledge of the rules and would only post to slate a referee?

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

Cill Dara Abu wrote: »

They do not need any referees permission, they put themselves in the public eye therefore they have to take the good with the bad. They don't ask for players permission so why referees?

Correct, you dont need permission; but you should ask. Have you ever hear people from both teams complement a refs preformance after a match? most comments and raings will be for the few tough decisions a ref supposedly gets wrong during a match. Players are 100% different. players make lots of mistakes in a match, but teams supporters dont want their blood after the game after a weak preformance. Where as if a ref makes one bad decision, (or if the opposition thinks its a bad decision) he gets stated slated

D'Agger

I like the idea but 99% of people who watch matches are never going to be in a rush to the internet to praise a referee - there'll be nothing but outraged posts from rash individuals....which is a pity really.

gaawriter

Have tried to check out your site.... Is it up and running as my browser can't open it... Thanks.

macadam

LazyPaddy wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the responses. I genuinely do not want this to be a place for people to vent anger to referees. I really hope that people would compliment a referee when they have a good game. It's like when people discuss a game and they say that "Jimmy was great in full back this week, but had a shocker last week." If they can logon to compliment a player i don't know why they wouldn't do that for a ref.
Being a player for over 15 years, I have come accross my fair share of good and bad refs, but there is no accountability for them. There is no scoring system to say a ref is good or bad. In every job there is a metric for how good you are doing. Why not have one for referees???
I take on the point of not having the names on the site but they are publically disclosed on the GAA sites already. I am hoping that the referees would get on board with the idea and I have no problem letting a referee moderate their area.

In my county and I am a ref we are all assessed at least 4 times during a season, and their is no holding back with these assessments, as in any game people read the refs decisions differently, I had two assessors do an assessment on me in the same game both gave two different reports on different incidents in the game.
I am refereeing over 15 years and the standard has improved ten fold, the majority of spectators and some on here are the ones that need to read up on the rules.

LazyPaddy

Hi All
Well I'm sad to say that I have pulled the site down. I guess the amount of negative reaction this has piped up has answered my own question as to whether or not people would actually come on to a site to compliment something as opposed to give out about it.
I have received threats, both legal and abusive, telling me that if I continue with the site the way I intended to that they would follow through with their threats. All of the threats are by people claiming to be referees. I have answered all the PM's with curtious responses and re-assured them that it is only a proof-of-concept stage and the majority of them have not seen my end goal...which was actually to allow the good referees to be removed from the common stereotyping of all refs being useless and to eventually restore a sense of respect to referees much like the way the rugby referees are respected.
To all those who wished me good luck I thank you, and to all those that opposed me I hope that some day you see what i was trying to achieve.

An Citeog

I've removed the link to the site above. Lazy Paddy, PM me if you want me to close or delete this thread.

Also, you can report any abusive PMs you've received using this button () which you'll find in the top right hand corner of each PM and they'll be dealt with by the admins.

bruschi

thats a shame lazypaddy. honeslty, I didnt think it would work, for the reasons I outlined above. I can see you were trying to do something decent, but just with the way things are, others would make it not work. maybe talking with the referees union might be the best way to se if you could get your ideas taken on board. but as I said above, and as macadam outlines above, refs are already adjudicated on, and personally, by the right people who fully know the rules. too many spectators still dont know the rules. small case in point, the thousands who cheered when Alan Brogan handpassed a goal against Wexford in the Leinster final.