Men in Black

Outrageous!  OK, time for a blog post and a soccer rant at that.

The other day I got a survey from NFHS, the high school sports overseer, collecting feedback on possible rule changes for high school soccer in 2013.

A couple of questions on the survey really irritated me.  It's no wonder why US Soccer Development Academy has banned its players from high school soccer.

First, let me start by noting that I am somewhat of a traditionalist.  I like traditions and don't like needless change.  Modern soccer is a sport steeped in tradition.  It has a long and rich history that has been protected and guarded for more than 100 years.

Now, the NFHS wants to come in and make ridiculous changes.  The first thing they want to do is "require referees to be in black and white striped shirts."  What?!  Soccer referees have historically been the men in black.  Since the late 1800's soccer referees have worn black, unless one of the teams wore a dark color, in which case the referee wore red.

In 1994, referees added yellow or white jerseys to the mix.  Never, though, has a soccer referee ever worn "black and white stripes."  That's football (or armball/throwball as it should be called)!  There are soccer teams that have been wearing black and white stripes longer than Americans have been playing soccer (Juventus, Newcastle).

Today, referees, as specified by FIFA and US Soccer, wear yellow or alternate uniforms in black, red, blue or green (depending on the jerseys of the teams).  Why mess with that?

The second thing NFHS had on the survey was a rule requiring three referees instead of one referee and two assistant referees.  What?  What does that even mean?  FIFA and US Soccer require at least a referee and two assistant referees (referee on the pitch and two AR's run the touch lines).  NFHS does this too, but also allows the use of the "dual officiating system," which is two referees on the pitch.

First, the dual system is a joke.  The AR's primary job is to signal when the ball leaves the pitch and to signal offside.  Without AR's, using the dual system, it's virtually impossible to make offside calls accurately.

And what do they mean by "three referees" instead of a referee and two AR's?  Are they implying that the two referees on the touch lines aren't referees and can't call fouls?  Well, they can.  So what is that supposed to mean?

NFHS and their affiliated state associations have already messed up the game enough.  Teams play more games than they should in a short span of time which leads to injury and burnout.  They keep time on the scoreboard, taking that away from the referee.  The list could go on.

NFHS should stop messing with the rules of the game and mucking everything up.  Just use US Soccer and FIFA's more than adequate rules.