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3706 - Victoria, British Columbia, Canada


This card come to us from Victoria. I've been to Victoria several times and the downtown area is beautiful. This card features hand signals of football (soccer) referees. The top half shows some of the calls such as a direct free kick, an indirect free kick, issuing a yellow and red card, and the play on signal. The bottom half are signals the assistant referees make including direction of the throw in, substitution needed, ball out of play, and offside.

I officiated football for several years when I was younger and enjoyed it for the most part. There were challenges at each level. At the men's league level, many of the players acted like their were professional footballers and likes to 'assist' me with calls. I once sent off two players for a minor scrap and one of the players was an officiating colleague of mine!

I still remember my first referee's clinic when I was 13 or 14. The old instructor, who had a lot of great advice, said that you should treat every game you officiate as professionally as possible. Even though, he said, an under 10 game might not be a big deal, it is a huge deal to the players playing in it. It's something I've kept in mind and try to follow when I officiate other sports, or set up tournaments at my school. 

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