Home-Towned?

The Myth and the Reality

Remember this story before you blame 'bias' on the outcome of your next game.

 

 

I just got home from refereeing a soccer game between two teams - call them Blue and Green. Several weeks ago, I refereed another game in which Green played unusually well. Before this game began, the 3-person referee team talked about Green's progress through the season. I'm certain that, had we not been referees for this game, we would have stayed just to cheer Green on. Green played very well, but it lost 2 to 3 in a close game. Green's coach protested vehemently about being home-towned by three local referees. (Green had traveled 30 miles for this game.) "I don't know how you guys can sleep well tonight." was the referee team's reward for its initial enthusiasm for Green.

 

On the way home, I thought about this interesting situation: a coach that had assigned his own interpretation to the referee team's decisions. Here was a situation where, if anything, the referee team would have loved to see underdog Green win. The referee team was certainly not biased against Green, but Green's coach saw only the calls that favored Blue.

 

Then, I realized how many times, AS A COACH, I've said the same thing. Hmmm. Made me really stop and think.

 

The Myth

 

"We were home-towned." "The referee is biased." "The referee played favorites." "The referee threw the game." "The referee knows somebody on the other team.  I saw him talking to (laughing with, shaking hands with, smiling at, etc.) someone from the other team before the game (after the game, etc.)"

 

The Reality

 

There are numerous reasons why being home-towned by a biased referee is most unlikely.

 

(1) The most compelling reason to dispense with the myth of being home-towned is the nature of the referee's personality. Referees take solace in, and their strength from, the laws of the game (LOTG). Referees feel that they are in the game to bring order and civility to what, otherwise, would be a very chaotic environment. Soccer is a sport where the better team often loses. That's just soccer. Referees can tolerate the vagaries of soccer, the bad bounces, the taunts of the sidelines, and the inexplicable outcomes if the LOTG have been followed. Referees that don't see the LOTG as a refuge quickly get booed out of being referees. Referees might be new, learning, young, old, slow, blind, stupid, or incompetent. But, biased? Nope.

 

(2) If you insist that there are some "bad" people in this world, then I can see how you can believe that some of them have become referees. However, it would take a conspiracy for a team of three referees to be bad. The likelihood of three referees being in cahoots is, well, unlikely. Let's see. If the probability that a referee chosen at random from an urn of black marbles and white marbles is biased is (even as high as) 0.05 (5%), then the probability of a gaggle (herd, cluster, etc.) of three randomly-chosen referees coming together as a conspiracy is (0.05)(0.05)(0.05) = 0.000125. This is roughly 1 time in 10,000 games. Not too likely, I guess.

 

(3) Referees talk before the game, at half-time, and after the game. The ritualistic discussion is always essentially the same: "What did I miss?" "Did I miss any of your signals?" "How'd we do?" "Why did you call it that way?" And, so on. It's pretty hard to be biased and get away with it when every mistake is  discussed (and criticized) by your peers.

 

(4) Bias in youth games? Last time I looked, Las Vegas wasn't making book on youth games. The driving force behind almost all dishonest officials in professional sports is money. There isn't much money riding on youth games these days.

 

(5) Referees seldom choose their own games. They are assigned by third parties you almost never get to meet: assignors. The job of the assignor is to match referees with teams. An assignor isn't going to assign a referee where there is the potential for favoritism, because, this reflects poorly on the assignor. So, unless we make the conspiracy even larger, the claim of "bias" is looking mighty silly right now.

 

Universal Soccer Truths

 

    I. One team or the other has to win the game.

    II. One team or the other has to lose the game.

    III. The winning team will be happy.

    IV. The losing team will be unhappy.

    V.  It's not the losing team's fault they lost. Therefore, it has to "be" the referee.

 

But, now, you know better.

 

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