MLS referees to get ethics refresher in wake of Whitecaps complaints

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Whatever Vancouver Whitecaps fans might think of Tim Ford’s performance as referee on Saturday, the revelation that his family has a love of LAFC seems to be leading to change within the organization that oversees Major League Soccer’s on-field officials.

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“We are re-evaluating our processes about what constitutes a connection with a club,” Professional Referees’ Organization spokesperson Chris Rivett said, succinctly, on Tuesday.

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After all the social media controversy that popped up after Saturday’s 2-1 Whitecaps loss to the San Jose Earthquakes, a game filled with contentious calls by Ford, fans found a collection of posts on Instagram by Ford’s wife that were taken as showing bias toward LAFC, and thus obviously against the Whitecaps, the argument ran.

As part of PRO’s game-by-game review process, the group’s technical staff will speak with teams about issues they may have had with an official’s performance and then do a review themselves. Those discussions with teams don’t usually happen until 24 hours have passed, just to give everyone time to breathe. Then the feedback is collected and if it’s deemed worth discussing, will be included in the post-match review that each official gets in the days following. Needless to say, Ford’s assessment and application of the laws of the game will be, or may have already been, discussed with him.

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That is what you would hope from an organization that supervises what are supposed to be the best match officials in North American football.

But it’s clear from Rivett’s acknowledgment that PRO recognizes their discussions this week need to also touch on ethics. Policy is an continuing discussion between PRO and its member officials. The officials meet as a group at least once a month to discuss policy and bigger issues in the game.

One of the topics that will be coming up is, essentially, how to protect yourself from accusations of bias. Tim Ford, we can see from his wife’s posts, is a proud father and a huge fan of football. It’s inevitable that he will be attending matches in his hometown, especially with his kids. (PRO did review the posts in question, and insists they never found a photo of Ford in LAFC livery, or any other MLS club for that matter, and also noted that the photos are mostly old.)

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Rivett noted that some officials attend games to support their fellow officials — truly people cheering only for the refs. (I can attest to this being a real thing, just as a witness, to be clear.)

But the truth is, there is no doubt that what one intends with one’s post and how others might perceive those posts are very different things. This is the unfortunate reality we live in. If you’re going to post on social media, someone, somewhere, is going to scrutinize them.

Two decades ago, before we entered this hyperreality that can be so easily torqued beyond reason, officials might have been cautioned against having a beer at a match they might be attending on a non-official basis. That was really to protect yourself against the unscrupulous fan who might scream afterwards, “I saw a ref getting drunk at the footy! He’s corrupt!”

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Wild accusations have been levelled at people for less.

That advice holds true today. As does not accepting gifts, no matter how innocuous they may seem. Not even a club pin, given as a thank you.

The need to protect yourself against accusations of bias goes so much further now. You must be careful what you share with the broader world. That is surely a topic that will be shared with PRO’s members. It may not be fair that an official’s family has to police themselves on how they share their lives, but that, again, sadly, is the hyper reality we live in.

One thing that PRO and MLS would be wise to consider on top of this ethics refresher: Look at how other footballing nations handle their assignments. In Germany, most officials are members of local clubs. Officials would never be assigned to do a game in their region, meaning that the closer you get to the top, the further you have to travel to blow your whistle — a Bavarian-based referee would almost certainly not be assigned to call a game in Bavaria. Only if both clubs were from Bavaria might they be assigned to call the game. This is to protect the official against any perception of locally driven bias.

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England and Italy have similar policies.

This is to say, by living in Los Angeles, Ford should probably not be assigned games in Southern California, maybe not even the entirety of the state itself.

In the end, Tim Ford made a series of calls that probably followed the letter of the law, but most of us know the laws in sport can generally be bent. His execution drew a mountain of criticism, some deserved.

But his in-game execution is beside the point. The real point is that he should never have been in the position in the first place. The policy needs to be better. It needs to protect officials.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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