No matter their culture, language or background, fans of the beautiful game worldwide are united by a common bond, a clarion call that echoes through their very footballing souls:
"Come on, ref!"
Yes, every supporter, everywhere, takes umbrage with what the on-field officials are doing on any given day. Here in CONCACAF, though -- a confederation helmed by corrupt clowns like Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer -- we're often inclined to believe that poor refereeing decisions go beyond mere human error or incompetence, into the realm of high-level conspiracy theorizing.
Sure, nowadays, I wouldn't put anything past FIFA and its member organizations. But -- with a hat tip to Occam and his razor -- the more likely reality is that the refs in CONCACAF just aren't that good.
"Well, that's even better!" you may think. "Rather than trying to undo entrenched corruption and negligence, all we need to do is find new, better refs!"
It's not that easy. In fact, it's quite bloody difficult.
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Y'see, high-level referees don't just materialize out of thin air. To think that they can is to think that all you need to do to help your sad-sack, dateless friend is to tell him to "be more confident". Sure, it sounds easy enough. But if he has no job, hasn't gotten laid in a year, doesn't have clothes that fit properly and has an intrinsically low sense of self-esteem, he's not gonna just roll out of bed one day with a sudden burst of confident zeal.
In order to be fit for World Cup qualifying or other important matches, refs must go through the arduous building process -- the dozens of futile job interviews, the dozens of unsuccessful dates, the wardrobe overhaul, as it were -- before they're ready to be considered for such important duties. That takes years and years of work for an individual referee (though not, hopefully, for your sad-sack pal).
Even then, if a ref builds themselves up by working their way through the ranks, and gets their chance in a big game, it could all be undone by a crucial error once they get that chance. Or, in Sad-Sack McGee's world, he finally has things going swimmingly when, for reasons unbeknownst to him, he starts telling his co-workers about his new girlfriend's urinary habits. Yeah, watch that house of cards come down in an instant.
So with this in mind, it's heartening to see that CONCACAF is at least trying to fix the problem, hiring longtime international ref Brian Hall to become the new director of referee administration. The optimist would say that this is a step forward, and that the American (with 15 years of international experience, including a World Cup) will use that pedigree to help guide the continent's refereeing program in a positive direction. He could be Mystery to the Sad-Sack McGees of the CONCACAF reffing world.
The cynic would say that this newly-created position is just a way for Chuck Blazer to give a compatriot of his a cushy patronage appointment where he moves papers around for a six-figure salary. (I have no evidence that Blazer and Hall even know each other, but again, this is CONCACAF we're talking about, so the cynical instinct can be forgiven, methinks.)
Either way, ideally this appointment will help CONCACAF move towards a higher, unified standard of officiating throughout its member organizations over the medium and long term. But what it won't do is suddenly change things at next year's Gold Cup. Canadian players and fans will still be treated to the same rotation of beloved faces brandishing the whistles and flags, and we'll still be forced to endure, as Gerry Dobson would put it, "the way it happens, time in and time out for the Canadian team."
But even if it does, let's remember that referees -- even long-time CONCACAF referees -- are people too: