How interacting constraints shape emergent decision-making of national-level football referees

ABSTRACT

Here, using a grounded theory methodology, we explored the experiential knowledge of nine national-level Association Football referees (aged 23–35 yrs; 3.8 yrs mean minimum national-level experience) with the aim of better understanding why referees make decisions during performance. Results indicated that referee decision-making actions were not predominantly aimed at traditional notions of decision-making accuracy (e.g. correctly identifying rule transgressions), but were instead focussed on meeting two overarching task goals: maintaining control and preserving the integrity of the competitive game. These objectives were, in part, informed by co-invested task outcomes, which referees perceived that players, spectators, coaches and fellow referees had about ‘how the game should be played’. Analysis revealed four decision-making priorities (‘four pillars’) used to meet these expectations; these were conceptual notions of: safety, fairness, accuracy and entertainment. We discuss how these results provide a case that: (i) referees co-construct the game with players and (ii) referee decision-making is an emergent process of the performer–environment relationship nested within task goals. Finally, we recommend that future research investigate decision-making accuracy within the context of a competitive match and that distinctions be made between types of bias and the complex strategies referees use to manage the game.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecological dynamics
• referee
• association football
• decision-making
• grounded theory
• constraints
• complex systems
• soccer
• emergent
• behaviour

Acknowledgments

Football Brisbane, Football Queensland and Football Federation Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Scott Russell

Scott Russell holds a Masters degree from the Queensland University of Technology, where he is also undertaking his PhD in referee decision-making practice. His main area of research is within the School of Exercise and Nutrition Science, interrogating how referee decision–making influences movement coordination. He is a sessional academic who teaches skill acquisition, motor control and principles of physical activity in coaching. Scott is also a semi–professional referee, who is passionate about philosophical ideas and how they govern our interactions with our environments and futures.

Ian Renshaw

Associate Professor Ian Renshaw is a Senior Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He is a former P.E. teacher, who’s day job has been about teaching and researching sports coaching, skill acquisition and sport psychology for over 25 years now. Outside of this, Ian has coached and continues to coach a range of sports, but largely focuses on cricket coaching from 8 year olds through to adults, football and rugby union. Ian is particularity interested in developing constraint–led approaches for P.E. and coaching.

Keith Davids

Professor Keith Davids is Professor of Motor Learning at the Centre for Sports Engineering Research (CSER), where he leads the Skill Acquisition theme. His research programme in ecological dynamics investigates constraints on coordination tendencies in athletes and sports teams classed as nonlinear dynamical systems. Ideas from ecological psychology and nonlinear dynamics have been integrated into a Nonlinear Pedagogy. His research seeks to investigate affordances as constraints on emergent coordination tendencies in athletes and sports teams. In addition to his research Keith supervises several UK based and international doctoral students. Keith is also a journal and grant reviewer for several national and international publishing companies and organisations, and contributes to the MSc Human Factors in Sports Engineering module.