Q and A with PRO general manager Howard Webb

That’s me in the middle at the United Soccer Coaches Convention VAR booth with left to right, MLS Referee of the Year Alan Chapman; broadcast colleague Roberto Abramowitz; Howard Webb; Senior Director of match officials Mark Geiger.

In the absence of training or matches in Major League Soccer due to the coronavirus pandemic we have seen or read about the activities for players to keep them fit, sharp and engaged with the game. 

Not much has been uttered about a vital group once the games resume – the referees.

I spoke earlier this week with the general manager of Pro Referee Organization (PRO), Howard Webb to see how his group of officials is coping and preparing for the eventual return of matches. Webb is the former 14-year English Premier League referee who was in the middle for the World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain in 2010. 

He describes some of the specific avenues for continued development in the midst of no competitions. Webb also discusses the controversial offside tracking line and why it was considered by MLS – and may still be in the future.

Webb also talks about his partner, Bibiana Steinhaus – the first women to referee a men’s Bundesliga match.

Glenn Crooks: I wanted to make sure that the referees are not forgotten during this crisis.

Howard Webb: Thank you for thinking of us. Obviously, we don't like to be in the spotlight we prefer to be in the background but it's nice that you're thinking about us because we've been affected in in significant ways at the moment as well.

GC: How are you engaging your referees – how are they staying fit and sharp?

HW: In some ways we're better equipped I think to deal with this because our officials and staff live all over the country. We do a lot of things remotely. We come together in normal circumstances in person every two weeks. Obviously now, we can't meet in person we're having to look at ways that we can replicate the training. We have sports scientists who have been sending out programs for the officials to follow.

GC: I didn’t know you had a sports science division.

HW: Yeah, we do have a full team that is led by a sports scientist who actually I used to work with in the Premier League for many years he's been with us for some time now and then he has a team as well including a nutritionist and athletic trainers. Most of the training that the officials do is done remotely - like a program that's emailed out to the officials, it’s recorded on their heart rate monitors and their GPS devices and then submitted back to the sports science team who can then have a look and give feedback. So, yeah, we work in a very similar way to a team.

GC: Like a player, does a referee have to achieve game-fitness to be fully prepared?

HW: Yes, for sure. It's not just about following their physical training programs - it's also about doing games. And getting back into the motion and the movement of being on the field. It's not the same as being on a treadmill. This is about match fitness, knowing how to react to transitions in the game. Knowing for assistants that’s it's quite specific movement, up and down the line. Everything has to be brought back into play before you take charge of your first competitive game. We're going to have to look at ways of doing that, once we get a better picture of when the season is going to restart. We'll go through another kind of preseason program.

GC: So, during this period you are normally getting together in person every other week. How are the officials continuing to develop in the absence of that? The players and coaches are breaking down a lot of film.

HW: The key feature when we get together every two weeks is to look back on the previous games and we look at the key incidents and some of the discussion is really in depth. The officials are so honest and open the way that they reflect on their performances, they share a real common desire to get better and look at the learning from situations where an error might be made and also look at the examples which show good practice - I always come away from those meetings energized by those discussions. And we'll, we'll do that again for the games that have been played in the first two weeks. We actually met after week one and we went from week one games. We've still got to discuss week two and we'll do that in the next few days. 

GC: Will there be anything else to review or discuss?

HW: We're not going to have any more games to look back on from 2020 season so we'll look at some topics that came out of 2019 and look back on trends, things that we dealt with last year and how we feel we progressed in certain areas of game management like dealing with serious foul play challenges, positioning on set pieces all of those sort of things. I’m going to invite some guest speakers into our virtual meeting room, and we'll try and keep it fresh and interesting.

GC: You could break down some of your old EPL matches.

HW: Yes, there were plenty of errors and learning moments there. 

GC: How do you rate the overall quality of your officials in PRO. European coaches in the league like Patrick Vieira and Dome Torrent often felt the American officials were not up to the task or the speed of the game? Is it similar to the American players trying to attain the standard of a top European player?

HW: There's absolutely no doubt about that. But in the three years I’ve been here I've seen an incremental improvement in the quality of the officiating. All of that instruction that we're giving to our people is almost identical to the instruction that people are being given in different parts of the world so I've got a lot of faith in this workforce and the ability of US officials to be as good as anything around the world.

GC: So, you think we can produce officials respected around the world?

HW: I feel that there's no reason why U.S. officials can't be really at the very highest level. And we see that as well. Ismael Elfath last year refereed the final of the U-20 World Cup in Poland. We saw Jair Marrufo referee of the FIFA Club World Cup final. So, we've seen real success. Our officials group has been rubbing shoulders with some of the best around the world and excelling and I'm delighted with that.

GC: Do you think it is important for officials to have played the game?

HW: I think having a feel for the game is really important. I don't think to be a top referee it’s a prerequisite that you must have played the game or played at any certain level but it can be an advantage. We've always been really open to players getting involved in officiating.

GC: That's the obvious next question – is it frustrating that more players aren’t looking more closely at that? 

HW: It's been a frustration for some time not only here but when I worked over in England as a technical director of the Premier League referees we set up sessions for professional players and there was hardly any taking us up on it. I guess players maybe don't see it as a particularly appealing occupation. But I would say to anybody it is really is becoming something they can look to as a job which years ago it wasn't the case. It's a great way to stay involved in the game once your playing days are over. 

GC: Your partner, Bibi Steinhaus is a FIFA listed referee and working Bundesliga matches. She broke a barrier being the first woman to do so. Does she ever struggle being the only woman?

HW: With Bibi now doing games on a regular basis in the Bundesliga nobody even raises an eyebrow when her name is listed on a Bundesliga fixture. She did the Bayern Munich match a couple of weeks ago and did a great job. Without quality you're not going to make you regardless of gender.

GC: True, but that doesn’t mean a woman is going to be accepted in a male dominated culture.

HW: Part of it I guess it's so unusual. You don't expect to see the referee have a blond ponytail and Bibi often says she is so identifiable because she's the only one with that type of hairstyle. So, she stands out and of course it puts focus on her and it builds the pressure but she copes with it so well. I went to a game some years ago now with Bibi and I looked around and all the fans were not really interested that Bibi was in the middle because they'd seen her referee in 2.Bundesliga games for several years before. There might be a novelty value at first because there's not many around but hopefully, it becomes more the norm. 

GC: You have two female assistant referees in PRO – Felicia Mariscal and Kathryn Nesbitt. How is their progress?

HW: They are both excellent assistant referees. The do great work week in and week out and are very good at what they do. I'd love to see more. We're seeing more women getting involved. We have a part of our company called PRO 2 which is where the development happens onto the MLS level and also serves USL and the NWSL. We've got quite a good number of female officials coming through PRO 2 and I'm really hopeful that we'll see at some point before too long one of them breaking into MLS as a referee.

GC: Can either Felicia or Kathryn be promoted to referee status?

HW: No, they're both on the assistant referee track so that means earlier in their career they focused on being assistant referees.

GC: I wonder if they took that route because of the gender bias? 

HW: It’s possible, isn’t it? You’d have to ask them how they felt coming through. We have some women on the referee's track operating at the USL championship level that were able to pass that high level fitness test. If they deliver good performances on those games at that level we will give them an opportunity on MLS. There see trailblazing women like Bibi and Stephanie (Frappart) at the highest level of men’s football for them to look up to a know it can be done.

(Note: Frappart is the first woman to referee a Ligue 1 match and was in the middle for the men’s European final the Super Cup between Liverpool and Chelsea last August.)

GC: Sorry, but we can’t have a chat about officiating without bringing up VAR. Your group has decided not to use offside tracking lines in video review like they use in the EPL.

HW: The offside lines were tested in 13 games behind the scenes in the fall of 2019. We wanted to see if we could implement them and make our system better. But our broadcast camera positioning is quite variable here and as such we didn't feel it would give the consistency across all of our venues to make it a viable option right now.

GC: Right now?

HW: We’re keeping an eye on what’s happening with the technology. But we want to make sure we have consistency in all our markets and at the moment we don’t have confidence that’s the case.

GC: How do you react when you see armpit offsides on video review in the EPL? Do you throw up your arms in dismay?

HW: Well, all of the guys over there implementing it are former colleagues of mine so I am wishing them all the best. What's been acknowledged by the IFAB (rules governing body) is that the use of technology has shifted the paradigm away from giving benefit of the doubt to the attacking team. And I know for sure that IFAB is actively looking at ways that balance can be shifted back toward the attacking team.

GC: What are some of things they are thinking about?

HW: There’s talk about the offside line being thicker so that the advantage goes back to the attacker. They are also looking at possible amendments to the game. We're [PRO] are fortunate in one respect that we don't use the lines and therefore we can give the benefit of the doubt to the attacking team. It seems to work in our competition. 

GC: Why don’t the referees in England go to the monitors during a review?

HW: That was a collective decision - trying to be mindful of the tempo and pace of the game. I’m sure they will continue consulting and make tweaks the same way we’ve done here.

GC: Do you ever get the urge to get back in the middle and call a game?

HW: No, I was keen to go out at the top. My final game was in the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 – a knockout game between Brazil and Chile and it was a great way to end my career. And I’m really excited to be involved in the growth of the sport here and enjoying my time living in the U.S.