It's mainly around refereeing quality. Too many games now result in a bit of a lottery on decisions for both sides. It's also very frustrating that when a decision is made and a player swears in the ref's face they never send players off. It just makes a mockery of the respect campaign.

Refereeing quality is a topic we take very seriously.  There are numerous development opportunities for all our referees to improve their performance however after the basic course the County FA can only impose training on referees who choose to apply for promotion. Hopefully referees who make decisions which are “a bit of a lottery” are few and far between, but we will increase the monitoring of our referee workforce and follow up any negative observation regarding our referees.

No clear policy publicised on how appointments are made, and a lot of confusion exists between County FA appointments and those of the major leagues within the County set-up. Difficult to acknowledge County appointments due to confusing messages from them and stupid reminder emails when appointed to County Cups.  WGS is still very slow and cumbersome.

We recognise that transparency of appointing criteria would be welcomed, so please view a complete criteria policy by clicking here. There is an order of precedence for appointments as laid out by the FA and we will work harder on publicising the differentiation between County FA and League appointments to make it clearer to match officials. Acknowledging County appointments is made simple by clicking on the link at the end of the FullTime email. Alternatively, a further link to the acknowledgement card can be accessed by clicking here. However, we will canvas the FA and FullTime operation staff to see if a more user friendly way can be found.

The county concentrates its referee development on young referees; the provision for older referees being new or longstanding is practically zero.

This is an unexpected criticism as we offer numerous development opportunities for all levels and all ages of referees. Perhaps the issue lies less with the provision but more with our marketing. True there are young referee development groups which as you might expect, deal with issues which are specific to young referees, e.g. when moving from refereeing youth games into adult football, and how to deal with vociferous parents and team managers on the touchlines, amongst other barriers which can face young referees trying to progress. The “practically zero” provision of development opportunities for older referees can only be the result of us not getting the message out there to everyone.

Please click here to view our referee development opportunities.