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Please understand that I truly appreciate the hard work put in by the Assistant Referees and Club Linesmen working at the rec, club, and high school levels. At tournaments I have seen these hardworking soccer officials work 3 or more games in a day in the sweltering Texas heat. Their contribution is invaluable to the game of soccer.
However, for me personally, there are far too many matches where the soccer referee announces to his assistants:
"Keep your flags down, I am going to call this match from the middle. You are to only call out of bounds."
and I couldn't tolerate this beyond the first time it happened.
I'm not questioning the authority of the referee to impose his total will on the match. I don't contest the right of the referee in soccer to limit the assistant referee's duties. Nor do I question the wisdom of taking that course of action. I fully understand why the referees do it, and just cannot for the life of me understand how anyone would ever agree to be set up for the kind of abuse which goes along with agreeing to not perform a large portion of the job requirements, as spelled out by the laws of the game.
While early on I maintained that ego has nothing to do with my position, I've come to terms that ego is everything in this discussion. I'm just not interested in being made to look stupid, and the only thing worse than appearing stupid is appearing incompetent. And when an assistant referee agrees to work in a situation where he can't call anything except out of bounds, he or she will constantly appear incompetent. I simply cannot understand how an individual can willingly allow themselves to be put in this position. This is particularly baffling in our present reality where peer pressure is at such a high level that it has elevated body piercings and tattoos to the rule instead of the exception. Yep, ego has everything to do with it!
Fortunately, the fix is easy, and as with most problems in life, it is simply a matter of communication.
Once the soccer referee has informed the assistant referee or club linesman of his limited role -- any limited role -- the assistant is to put on a special LTD armband which clearly communicates this limited role to both the players and all who are there to watch the match.
So the soccer spectators and players, aware of the limited role, don't worry themselves with why the assistant referee is not doing a big part of his job, as spelled out by the laws of the game. Nobody appears incompetent, so the grief giving is greatly reduced if not eliminated entirely. Now that is a situation I could live with.
This is particularly effective in a situation where the referee is only imposing limitations on one of the two assistants, which in my mind would be the worst case scenario under today's reality. And spare me the e-mails which attempt to justify such actions, as I'm not maintaining that the action isn't justified, but only that I couldn't tolerate the abuse which would naturally accompany it.
For the international reader, I've discussed this topic with league officials from overseas, I'm led to believe that this never happens outside the borders of the USA. So it's not a matter for FIFA's concern.
Mike Kimbro
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Source: Dallas Morning News, July 9, 2003, P.14C, where the actions of MLS referee Jair Marrufo are studied in an article by Steve Davis entitled "MLS referees are called into question."