IN ALL FAIRNESS - Refereeing crisis brewing

When there is a discussion about refereeing it tends to be about the standard and there being a crisis of the lack of quality referees. Well, there is a crisis in refereeing coming, and it’ll be the case of just being happy to have any referee.

Last weekend saw a number of games in the Mid division having to be cancelled because there was no one available to officiate. Okay, there was a perfect storm last weekend which saw 24 county championship games in the three main hurling grades, all of which require three referees at each game, two to act as linesmen. Then there was a busy weekend in camogie and ladies’ football also, who also pull from the same trough of referees, so it was no surprise to see some matches having to give.

However, the cancellation of matches in the Mid isn’t a once off. As leading referee Fergal Horgan pointed out in this paper last week, an under 17 game in the west couldn’t be played recently as they couldn’t get a referee, while the same has happened in the South. Indeed, the South Board had to take a decision to stall their junior ‘B’ hurling championship a few weeks ago as they knew they wouldn’t have enough referees if they scheduled the games, with it only getting into its second round next weekend, the same time the North are already at the semi-final stage.

Also in the South, referees from Waterford have been brought in on occasion to officiate games to ensure they went ahead, while Camogie and Ladies Football have gone into Cork for referees on occasion.

Since the pandemic, according to Fergal Horgan, the refereeing pool in Tipperary GAA has fallen from almost 130 to just over eighty, a drop of somewhere between 50-60%. These are numbers that are unsustainable and at a time where clubs are looking for more and more games at all levels, grades, and codes, it could well be that County Boards may well have to design structures based on how many referees they have to officiate.

This problem has been coming as the age profile of current referees is getting older by the year and the numbers of new referees taking up the whistle are few and far between. Just sixteen people signed up for the new Tipperary referees’ course which was deferred to next year. It is a start but that number of new referees is need each and every year.

So, what can be done to get more people to take up the whistle, and I include women in that considering Kilkenny’s Liz Dempsey is one of the most impressive referees I saw in any Gaelic Games competition this year in camogie.

Money isn’t the answer. If you increase the match fee for a referee, you could end up getting people officiating games for the wrong reason of having a nice side-earner, rather than being fair and impartial in the game itself.

Certainly, more supports are needed. New referees tend to be welcomed with open arms but once they are trained up and given their first couple of games, they tend to be left on their own after that, apart from when they move to the higher level of inter-county competition where there is feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.

There is a stock of retired referees out there who could act as mentors for any new referee coming in, or indeed current referees, as a confidante. It’s not an easy job and not helped by the criticism they take, not just on the field which most referees accept comes with the territoty, but it is the stuff from the side-line and the supporters, many of whom don’t know the rules in any case, which can be the straw that breaks the camels back for some officials to give up altogether.

Let he without sin cast the first stone and I hold my hands up and have through frustration shouted things in from the side-line and/or stand that I have regretted, but at the end of the day, any referee that takes to the field is going out to adjudicate the best they can on what they see in front of them.

The task of finding new referees has tended to fall on clubs but that is a complete waste of time as unless club officers ask each of their members individually, how do you know who might be interested or not. Refereeing is almost like the priesthood, where people step forward.

Tipperary have a trump card they can call on in having the best hurling referee in the country in Fergal Horgan. A start would be asking Fergal to go to a centralised location in each of the four divisions on a given night, from where people who may have an interest in becoming a referee could go and speak with him and hear from the horses mouth the rewards of being a referee, and also how to cope with the downside, and from there making a decision about whether being the person in the middle is for them.