OH COME ON REF, REALLY?!

I made a post in Swedish about referees' calling games in Sweden differently depending on the gender of the players'. By popular demand, here is a rough translation, with of couple fewer swear words.

Usually, I advocate a high tolerance towards the referees' since acting out against them can have a negative impact on both the team and the game. However I can't get a penalty here on the blog, so it is now time for me to finally speak my mind.

GET IT TOGETHER REF!

"Female players' aren't made of glass."

I have spent the last couple of days here in Göteborg doing what I love the most, watching floorball. Today I watched Pixbo Wallenstam men's team take on local team Lindås Waves in a practice game where the referees allowed the players to scream at them when they blew the whistle (although without cursing), they allowed the players to shove each other, they allowed stick-hits and they let the players resolve almost all of the situations on their own, as long as the transgression didn't mess up the game. They only called the situations where they had to call, for example really obvious and hard stick-hits, roughing or high-sticking and even though referees seldom manage to sway both teams and the crowd, I thought they managed to keep the game on a decent level. 

Yesterday and the day before that, I watched Pixbo women's elite team take on Czech Republic in two practice games. That's right, not a club team. Another nation's national team. The whistle definitely struck a completely different chord in that game! For crying out loud, the female players' aren't made of glass, on the contrary they are really tough! I promise, they can take a stick hit and they can handle a physical game without the referee interfering. You might think you are protecting these women by making calls on a level which is way below their physical and mental capacity (which is absolutely moronic) and take penalties and free hits in situations that the same referee would have let go if the players' were male. 

This is ridiculous. You are not protecting them, you are actually holding women's floorball back from further developing by patronizing them and treating them like, let's be honest, children.

How do you expect our female players' to progress and get better at handling rough situations if you won't let them handle those kinds of situations on their own but instead blow the whistle every goddamn time they touch each other? 

That method (excessively taking calls in a game) is used on very young players' to teach them that the referee is the decider. You don't use this method with elite teams and especially not when one of the teams is an elite team and the other is a national team! Maybe we were unlucky to have referees who weren't at the level of the teams' playing, but it shouldn't look like this on any level!

"ADVANTAGE! PLAY ON!"

This is a phrase commonly heard on the court during men's games, but noticeably fewer times in a game with female teams. There they choose to call on everything instead of giving them the advantage of possession and letting the players' resolve the situation on their own.

During the game I watched today I saw two players (one of which had possession of the ball) get tangled up and harshly falling to the floor with a loud crash which resulted in lots of yelling from benches and from the stands. Many aggressive shouts echoed through the arena but no call from the ref, even though the situation looked violent. The ref made the right call by not doing anything. There was no penalty or free hit to be given in that situation, so they let them play on and just shouted "PLAAAY OOON!". Had these been two women's teams I am confident that the whistle quickly would have drowned out the shouts of all angry players' and a completely ridiculous 2-minute penalty would have been dished out.  

Not only are you ruining the game by calling everything and stopping the game, you are patronizing our female players' and making the games boring for them to play. The female floorball players' are few enough as it is, don't go around ruining the game for the players' we do have! Worse than that, you are effectively driving a wedge even further in the gap between male and female sports, as if that gap isn't big enough as it is. All because of the twisted logic that women can't handle any physically tough situations, at all.

I have coached women's teams in the northern part of Sweden for several years and this was a recurring theme with the exception for the few times when you actually got referees who could call a game fair. If a situation made a noise higher than X decibel of plastic-on-plastic sound, it was sure to be followed by the high-pitched sound of a referee's whistle which would result in (seemingly randomly appointed) free hit.

The referees who called the games for the men's teams I have coached have generally speaking had a much higher tolerance to hits and rough playing than the ones who called the games when I was coaching women, even though the players' in my men's teams have been much younger than the women's teams.

Something even more strange than that is the fact that the referee will have a much higher tolerance when a women's team plays against a men's team, to the point where the girls can basically send the boys flying over the boards and vice versa without penalties being dished out. The hits can actually be really hard, and the ref will accept it and shout "play ooon!". That sure is strange...

Swedish book of floorball rules.

Being strict and decisive when calling a game is not the same thing as calling a game differently based on the gender of the players. I can promise you that nowhere in this book is there a phrase such as "vary the calls depending the player's gender" or "female players are are to be held at a lower physical level". If you as a referee, when faced with a situation take a call and base it on facts and have some tact with it, then there is no problem in being strict, but don't treat the female players like children!

Stop being overprotective of our women's teams. Call the game fair and stop holding our female players back.

I am aware of the fact that not all referees behave this way and those who don't, well they don't need to feel struck by this. However those who do behave like this will hopefully start thinking about their reffing. 

"Men are stronger than women."

Maybe you have heard this phrase uttered when a game is to be played between a young women's team and a young men's team and my point here is - no, they aren't necessarily stronger. However, they are most likely more used to playing rough and bodychecking harder since the refs' tolerate them to play a much more physical game.

A ref can enrich and lift the quality of a game tremendously and at the same time a ref can completely ruin a game. You are really important and this is an issue that only you can fix. Someone has to take this issue further. Whenever I discuss this with fellow coaches or player's they always agree with me. 

"I know. It has always been like that."

Do you recognize this? Then please, help spread the word. It can not go on like this.

That's all for now. Thanks!