Prizes for good reffing a mistake

[Wadidiz]

I applaud the Millennium board for the bold moves forward with their latest decisions for Season 2004. Field ultimates who are employed by Mil, 7-minute games, standardized field size and the rumored "premier" format are significant steps in the right direction IMO.

The main point of this post, however, is the idea about prizes for good reffing. Believe me, there will be bitching and controversy a-plenty about this. Even if done perfectly there will be lots of talk about national and personal bias. The judges from nations who are better at English will probably fare better than the ones who are not. There will always be talk of personal favorites.

Besides, what if we succeed in training ALL the refs to do a good job?

And there will always be bad calls. That one bad call that hurts one team, that always immediately gets out on the grapevine, can have undue influence on the ultimates.

I say forget prizes to the "best" judging teams and pay the judges €100 per day and not hotel and airfare. REWARD ALL GOOD JUDGES FOR GOOD JUDGING. The teams are best able to find the best airfares and the promoters can help them get the best hotel deals.

Then hold each judging team/individual judge accountable for their performance, just like any boss/supervisor would do. Give warnings to judges who seem incompetent, biased or lazy. Then reduce points and pay if performance doesn't improve after the warnings.

And start with a training program for Millennium judges. This will pave the way for the pro judges needed for the near future.


CONDENSED VERSION:

Prizes for judging teams is asking for trouble and is not the way forward.

Pay judges €100 per day and hold them accountable instead.

Steve

Edit PS:

If we had handed out prizes during Season 2003 then Joy Masters should have had every judging team get prizes and some other tournaments should have had zero. This just further proves the illogic of the proposal.

SM

 

[Juice]

I could not agree more about NOT giving prizes on reffing. This would and will make everybody even more paranoid/biased as it is.


Sincerely hope that year 2004 will get bit more improvements than now is in the open.

 

[Wadidiz]

Juice,

Thanks for your support about the reffing idea.

Let's forget about the 8 games idea for now. Let's save that for later. I don't want to dilute the discussion about getting the ref thing right.

If it works I'm going to re-edit my post to focus on the main point.

Steve

 

[Wadidiz]

Nick,

I bit off too many points in my original post. See my last post. I'm curious about your opinion on the main point of this thread.

Steve

 

[Sam]

IMHO giving an extra bonus for a few reffing crews wont raise the overal standard for reffing when you have people reffing that don't even know the rules.

And then to the biggest problem. Why should I and my team reff next year an millenium leg? As it is now there is NO point in reffing when you get nothing for it and in the end you end up paying the bills. Oh and it looks like there will be 20% increase in games to reff with the shorter game time.

Why reff an leg when you can play it?

 

[Wadidiz]

Fair enough

Originally posted by Nick Brockdorff
I believe teams SHOULD be held accountable for the reffing.

Whether the way the Series is proposing is the right way to do it, remains to be seen.

I will say though, that it seems illogical for you to first say paid head refs on every field is a good idea - and then going on to say they would be biassed in selecting the best reffing crews for prizes ?



Nick

I didn't say they would be biased in their determination of which teams get prize money, just that there WILL be questions about it and I feel certain it will open the door to more reffing controversy.

Also - how are refs held acountable if everyone gets the same money ?

All refs would theoretically get paid the same money for satisfactory performance. IF any team or individual proves not to perform satisfactorily according to clearly established standards and after a warning procedure, then the team or individual would be docked in pay and/or points on a sliding scale.

With this system we would be expecting good reffing as the norm and pay in money and points for standard performance rather than saying that good reffing is something outstanding that should be rewarded with prizes.

Along with this there should, of course, be a training program and eve-of-tournament meetings for mini-training and review of rules. In other words, we need to serious organize the reffing program.

Steve

 

[organized_chaos]

Leagues just dont have the money around to train good refs. Teams can do the job, but there is no garentee that they wont be biased against one team or another. I'd say just hire independent refs from miscelaneous fields, and have them do the job. After all, they would be more experienced than the teams. Bad reffing is an inevidability. There will always be the bad call or missed play. It's human nature, other sports are the same way. It will get better in time.

 

[organized_chaos]

Most fields have a house team of some sort. Some even host small tournaments. Sure, some field refs may be not used to it, but I dont think having totally unexperienced players ref is the greatest idea either.