About The Essex County Soccer Referees organization

        The ECSR is a concerned group of local referees dedicated to improving the standard of soccer officiating in Windsor and the surrounding area.
        We do this by actively mentoring our referees; emphasizing on-field performance and professionalism, and keeping an open dialogue between the young and the experienced to ensure a free flow of ideas.
        We do this by enticing new referees to participate; by stressing that games are fairly distributed, new referees will be offered the same amount of games as veteran referees (albeit in easier leagues) thus encouraging the referee pool to expand and evolve.
        We do this by properly training officials; our involvement with the Ontario Soccer Referee Association (OSRA) yielded a provincially funded committee with the sole purpose of training referees. As OSRA members, we receive free training seminars and classes sponsored by this committee as a result of their findings.
        We do this by supporting the talented among us; as referees improve their abilities, we will ensure they are given more rewarding yet challenging opportunities. We will actively monitor their performance and we will help with the cost of the certification programs.

        All of this is achieved through free association, transparent operation, and democratic managing. Managers and executives must be accountable to the people they serve or else corruption and cronyism will flourish. Other groups have tried to operate using top-down dictatorial strategies with a closed-door policy which has resulted in failure. We believe that a record of game appointments should be kept for public viewing in order to ensure members are being treated fairly. We abhor the idea of closed-door and executive-only meetings; all meetings must have minutes posted and be open to the membership. We promote the holding of regular off-field meetings to strengthen as a group and encourage communication.

        Fostering a climate of communication will pay dividends on the field of play. Explaining calls whenever possible and being stern yet open with coaches and players can diffuse an escalating situation and earn deserved respect for officials. Referees need to show that they are human and admit that mistakes will happen. At the same time, they must stand by their calls as dictated in FIFA's laws of the game. It is a difficult dynamic, and a goal of our organization to teach.