Referees are invited to register with the Ref Centre (website) where
they are asked for their contact information and preferences regarding
fields and the leagues they would like to officiate in. Referees only
need to register with Ref Centre once.
Registered referees will be able to log into the site and indicate their
availability using Ref Centre’s calendaring tool.
The administrator responsible for referee assignment can upload league
schedules into the Ref Centre database. After approving the referees for
the league and verifying which divisions each referee can officiate in,
the administrator can begin appointing the appropriate game officials
for each game in the schedule. This ensures that referees of a particular
ability level can only officiate in games they are qualified for.
Assignment administrators have two methods available for assigning game
officials: assignment on a game by game basis (manual method), or batch
assignment of multiple games (automated method). Typically, the automated
method is used to assign all games in a month and can be completed in
just a few minutes – a process that used to take several days, and
many phone calls and emails before Ref Centre.
Once an assignment is made, the referee is notified by email of an invitation
to officiate. The referee is directed to their personal, Ref Centre web
account to accept or decline the invitation. Once accepted, a permanent
record of the game assignment is made in the Ref Centre database. To prevent
referees from “shopping” for preferred games, referees who
refuse an invitation become unavailable for another game assignment in
that timeslot, unless they are released by the assignment administrator.
During any season there will always be cancellations from referees. When
cancellations occur, the system can automatically find a replacement or
the administrator can choose to manually reassign the game.
The Ref Centre process ensures that correct referees are assigned to
games quickly and efficiently; to the benefit
of leagues, referees and players alike.