Again someone missed the point.?

Question

again missedthe point i was driving home.....the referees are brutal this year, not because of a fav team i have, but because they cant do their job properly, its time to get rid of some of the 35 year vets and get some new bloodin here........to validate my point here we have a ref who has almost if not been referring for 40 years in Ireland and Ken Lazeruk was my math teacher.......hes been there about 30 years himself.....who thinks its time to bring in some new guys if these older guys just dont have it anymore?

BTW you could not pay me to be a CFL official, they take too much critisism from EVERYONE even me....but come on, they are paid to do a job, they should at least get it done right!

Answer 1

Mark Cohon has addressed the issue of new blood in the refereeing camp by blaming the lack of support and training at the grassroots (ie high school and university) level.  I do agree with him to an extent; my views on the state of high school and university football in Canada have been stated in other Answers.

The bottom line is, do you bring in a ref from the States and train them to learn the rules and the idiosyncrasies of the Canadian game, or do you bring someone up from the grassroots level who already knows how CFL football is played?  To me (and to the CFL commish), the latter makes more sense than the former.  However, while there seemingly aren't many people willing to be a part-time CFL official, there's even fewer who are willing to be a part-time high school or university ref.  When I was playing high school ball, it felt like we only had 2 or 3 officiating crews for the whole city of Calgary, and Calgary's a pretty big city.  So I'd say it's not just a shortage of officiating talent at the CFL level, but a shortage of football officiating in Canada, period.  

I know many people who grew up reffing (and playing) hockey, and soccer too, for that matter, but I don't know anybody who's ever been a football ref.  It's always older guys--I don't think there's anybody who both plays and refs football at the same time.  It seems that there isn't any young-blood football refs in the country at any level, so finding replacements for the current CFL crop could be difficult.  I think it's a very real challenge faced by the league right now.

Answer 2

And if you had been paying attention you might have heard the league, the body responsible, state there is no line-up of people to take the job.  Why?  If they miss a call, one team's fans calls "bad officiating", if they make  call the other team's fans call it.  If they call by the rules, they are accused of over- officiating, if they relax the calls they are accused of being incompetent.  It is easy to sit in your living room watching the instant replay and second guess.  If you yourself state you wouldn't take the job, maybe you shouldn't be too critical.  These are human beings, not computers.  Enjoy the game for what it is, a game.  For the most part, the officiating has been consistent, and there would not be complaints if every ding-bat at home didn't have a better view of every play than everybody on the field.

Answer 3

It's easy to blame officiating and it happens a lot because most fans have an emotional investment in the game.  Now sometimes a guy makes a really bad and he needs to be admonished for it but then we have to let it go.  If an entire game comes down to one blown call keeping your team from winning then I say blame your team.  If they couldn't dust off their opponents handily then they allowed themselves to get in the position that left them vulnerable.  As for fans who say the refs are against my team, I say they need their heads examined.

I do agree there comes a time older officials should be asked to step aside from game duties for the good of the game and sometimes for their own safety.

CFL - our balls are bigger!

Answer 4

To antipopheadbanger:

Hockey and soccer refs can make a lot more money in Canada because there are a lot more opportunities to work.  Minor football officials will only get a couple of games per week at the most and only for about 1/3 of the year.  A good hockey or soccer ref can get just about as many games as he wants, year round.  Even "garage leagues" will pay decent money to a hockey ref.  

I know a guy who took early retirement from Air Canada because he could make more money from a reduced pension and full-time reffing (soccer) than he could from full time at AC combined with part-time reffing.

NFL refs are allowed to work a second job (Ed Hochuli's a lawyer AND he's also 56 years old) but they don't have to.  (NFL refs still make plenty of mistakes)  From what I've read, CFL refs have to work year round outside of football because the league doesn't pay enough.  

I think the CFL needs to increase the pay and recruit in the US.

Answer 5

The biggest problem is it is only a part time job, not like the NFL. I have heard they only get like $500/game.