Refereeing - To Gain Respect

Alhamdulillah the Wataniya Dhivehi league has ended and the top team VB Sports Club as expected regain their title. What can you expect from a team with all the top players in the country. This title comes with a heavy burden to carry our country flags in the AFC Cup next year.
To the Referees Department this has been a year of success and failure. Success because many new and young referees were tapped their potentials, and they did show their true potential by performing in their best to gain the respect of the players and supporters or at least the heart of the Referees Director. Young referees like, Basil Nafees, Ismail Izhaan, Ahmed Afsah and Ahmed Shifan have done a good job to gain the respect of the team. Perhaps with further exposure and experience, they will be developed to be better excellent referees.
Failure because some referees, even top referee did not perform to the expectation and failure also because some downsides and errors in the decisions of the referees have left the players and team management in amaze. Its a sad tragedy to be accepted for some coaches and players lost their jobs due to that. Self-evaluation and self-realization need to be done to realise one's performance and at least be considerate enough to have sympathy to others by taking effort to improve oneself in order to have a better seasons. "If one does not pity others, Allah will not have pity over him."
Respect is gained not demanded. Gaining the respect of others in the field of refereeing involve being respected by the players, coaches, team officials, FA administrators and the football fans. To achieve the highest status in refereeing is not by being a FIFA Referee and in fact the title as a "FIFA Referee" does give you the automatic recognition in the eyes of the above mentioned "customers". To be recognised as a quality referee, the referee has to first satisfy the satisfaction of the customers. The 'customers' will be satisfied if they are pleased with the decisions of the referees. They feel that fairness prevails throughout the game. To a referee - justice done must be seen to be done. Making a mistake is part and partial of the refereeing but making a mistake at the expense of the player (giving or not giving a card, giving a wrong card or making a wrong judgement) or the team (losing a match for an illegal goal or for a goal disallowed). making mistake in a game does not require a referee to balance it up by making a wrong decision the other way. A wrong penalty kick to replace a wrong penalty given earlier, a card to this side because he gave one the other side and many 'funny' decisions that are questionable.
This season sees the referees making mistake or wrong at the dying minutes of the the match or the last 10 minutes of the match. This is due to lack of concentration, carelessness and also complacency by the referees. Wrong judgement were often arises due to wrong positioning of the referees and the irony of that is that being in a wrong position is not because the referees were not taught or told where or why to stand in all situations. Fitness level, carelessness, tiredness, fatigue and lack of commitment by the referees are the few factors identified to influence the judgements and decisions of the referees. Allegation by teams officials that the referee are scared or are in favour of certain team is difficult to be accepted unless there is evidence to proof it. If it is such then it will be a tragedy to the refereeing community in this country. We do not want to believe that it is true neither do we want to see that the scenario is such. We do not want to follow like what certain countries are doing by getting foreign referees to officiate in the local league just because they don not trust their own referee any more. The local referees will then act as assistant referees only. They will be no more FIFA referees in the country.
All is not lost if we are committed and strive to do something about it. A loser will only say, "something has to be done" while a winner will say, "I must do something".
Hopefully we will begin the new season with a new image, giving yourself a chance so that the team will give yourself a chance too. The determination to do the best in each handling of the match should be the commitment of all referees. Thus, respect will be gained.