Macron referee shirt Uefa Champions League

The Macron referee shirt will be introduced in the Uefa Champions League in 2019-2020. On Dutch Referee Blog you’ll get an exclusive preview.

The real colours of the shirt are very, very bright, but do you like them? Below, you’ll also find the blue version. Please share your thoughts below.

Buy the shirts

You can buy the shirts in the Macron shop. The price is €79,- per shirt. Go to the shop.

Photo’s by refs

Nike referee kits 2018-2020

Pictures of the Nike referee kits 2018-2020 are released. Eric from French blog Arbitrez Vous gives me permission to share pictures from his blog with my readers. Because they kits are in different colours than previous years, I hope you want to share your thoughts. What do you think of the new colours?

In the new Nike brochure, there are even more pics.

Michael Oliver Nike outfits

 

The old colours are yellow, green, purple/pink and black, but two are different now. Blue and orange. As DutchReferee orange is great, because I never got the chance to wear the national team’s colour 😉

Nike referee kits 2018-2020

Nike referee kits 2018-2020. Pics via blog Arbitrez Vous.

Thoughts on the Nike referee kits 2018-2020?

Share your thoughts about the new kits? Do you like the colours?

So far they are not available yet. These are a first glimps on the new outfits.

Referee kits 2018 World Cup revealed

Great news: Referee kits 2018 World Cup revealed. Not by Adidas yet, but ‏@hendocfc on Twitter found the pictures online. Referees will wear the new referee kits during the World Cup in Russia. Referees from countries sponsored by Adidas will also wear them during the 2018-2019 season.

The pictures I found online are blue, yellow and red. “There’s two more colours of which there are no pictures yet: a black and a flashy green one.”

Pictures referee kits 2018 World Cup

Referee kits 2018 World Cup

What are your thoughts on the new referee kits?

The value of the video assistant referee

The game between West Ham United and Everton was analysed during an IFAB workshop about video technology in Amsterdam. The example below shows you precisely what the value of the video assistant referee is.

Make a guess first. The video assistant referee makes the call in 6 seconds. How long does it take the referee on the pitch?

The value of the assistant referee.

There is a challenge in the box. Do you spot anything wrong?

How does the video assistant referee work

These are the steps that the video assistant referee follow:

Referee will give a clear signal that the incident will be referred to the video assistant
Referee asks video assistant to advise on the potential infringement
Video assistant reviewing replays
Video assistant communicates decision to referee based on video evidence

Value of the video assistant referee

In the example of the West Ham attacker making a foul, the video assistant has made his decision in 6 seconds. You’ll hear the VA confirm a foul to Anthony Taylor by the West Ham number 9.

In the real situation Anthony Taylor goes to his assistant referee. They have deal with protesting players and then they can talk. They discuss for a while and after 43 seconds they decide: goal. After watching the video replays it shows that they made the wrong call and it took about 7 times longer.

Approved by IFAB

Test with video referee in the Netherlands

Test with video referee in the Netherlands

The KNVB, the Dutch FA, has experimented with the video since 2014-2015. That was a test with a video assistant referee acting in the background, with no real connection to the referee. Now IFAB has approved this new technique, it will be used during the 2016-2017 season. Dyring 25 cup games in The Netherlands the video assistant will be tested. Based on the findings a full protocol will be made.

The video referee will be placed in a van outside the stadium with two technicians. Want to get an idea? Watch the video in Dutch on this page that gives you an impression (even when you don’t understand the language).

The IFAB meeting was very important and many FA’s had a delegate present at the meeting. Ray Ellingham, National Referees Manager Football Association of Wales and IFAB Technical Member, tweeted before the meeting: Long old day just about to leave Amsterdam proud to be playing my part on behalf of @FAWales in the shape of the future of football.” It shows the importance of this new technique to refereeing professionals all around the world.

First results of testing

The first results of the offline testing of the system were very positive, says Gijs de Jong, operational director KNVB, in a video interview with FIFA. “We could correct approximately 1 out of 4 decisions by the video assistant, so that’s about 25%”. We also saw we could do it in an average of 12 seconds. We could really do it in a quick way, to make sure we don’t delay the game.”

What do the video assistants check during the games? They don’t check everything and there will no “100 per cent accuracy in decisions for every single incident”, Fifa says. But the most important decisions will be reviewed. “To avoid clearly incorrect decisions that are pre-defined ‘game-changing’ situations – goals, penalty decisions, direct red card incidents and mistaken identity.

Todd Durbin, Executive Vice President of Competition and Player Releations MLS, appreciates that he could discuss this with people from other leagues and associations. Some clubs are thinking of using the video assistant. “It’s good to talk about the challenges we’re going to have. Share knowlege, experiences. It will make this transition a lot smoother for all of us.

Massimo Bussacca stressses out that we should realize referees can not be perfect.”We can review some big mistakes, but we can not eliminate them.”

Want to check the full coverage of the workshop? Check out the video by Fifa.

Apple Watch for referees

As referees you need to know how you perform. If you see how much you run, what your heartrate is or where you run on the pitch, you’ll get an idea of how you perform during a game. And you’ll see how you can improve.  On Twitter I got in touch with Louis Bird and he’s passionate about the Apple Watch for referees. In this blog he will explain you the ins and outs of using the Apple Watch during your game as referee. He also uses a timer on the watch, but will focus on measuring activity.

A short introduction to Louis: He is a 20 of age and a level 7 London FA football referee.  His story: “I started officiating because I’ve never been a good enough football player and as I wanted to continue in the sport, I thought becoming a referee would be perfect. Football is my favourite sport and I could never give it up so the fact I get to continue with the sport that I love makes it worth being the match official every weekend.”

When I referee I use an Apple Watch Sport addition with a white sports band in the 42mm case size.

Apple watch for referees

I bought the Apple Watch because of the fact I live within the Apple Eco system and the fact I have an iPhone 6s+ means I can get all my match data easily on my iPhone without any need to connect to a computer. The convenience of the device makes it so quick and easy to use and gain the required data which I need.

During the game you can track distance, heart rate and calories burnt. The most frustrating thing about the Apple Watch is the lack of onboard GPS. This means you cannot see where you ran most on the field of play, it’s very restrictive in that sense. Maybe Apple will add GPS into the second generation of the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch has an optical heart rate monitor built into the watch which records your heart rate throughout the day. This feature is very useful because you can see your heart rate during and after the game. After your game the app will only display the average heart rate, but it is still a very useful feature on the Apple Watch and I’m glad it Apple decided to include it.

The Apple Watch gets more and more accurate as you start to do some exercise while bringing your iPhone with you (explanation of Apple Watch “calibration”). The Apple Watch uses your iPhones GPS to take an average of your speed, so when you run without your iPhone then it guesses roughly your speed and calculates the distance. Because I’ve had my Apple Watch for a long time now it is pretty accurate.

I’ve tested my Apple Watch along side my Nike+ sports watch and I’m happy to say the Apple Watch was showing roughly the same data measurements.

Apple Watch activity.

The data above is the kind of data I would see after each game I officiate in.

The data which the Apple Watch shows you is your active calories, time elapsed and average heart rate throughout your session. You can also set the Apple Watch up with a session that records your distance run throughout your session but I don’t record the distance when I referee so that I can tell the difference between my sessions when I view my data. The Apple Watch does record your total distance throughout the whole day, so even if you didn’t record the distance during your workout then you can still view your total distance.

Apple Watch activity.

The image above shows the main dashboard you will see when you open the Apple Watch app. You can see your stats that you achieved for the whole day. Stats such as distance and steps can be seen here.

When using your Apple Watch during your game you can see your heart rate, distance and calories burnt.

Apple watch on wrist

The image above shows how the Apple Watch displays the data when doing a workout. I took this picture when I went to the gym so that you could see what it looks like to see all the data displayed on the Apple Watch. If you swipe across the watch face you can get other data measurements such as heart rate and calories burnt.

For the most accurate heart rate measurements you can pair any Bluetooth heart rate chest strap straight to the Apple Watch. I’ve done this a few times when working out and it does help improve the accuracy of the data.

Most of the time I check my data straight after my match when I arrive home because I like to see what I’ve just done. I’m always amazed and surprised how far I run during each match I referee in.

Dashboard activity app apple watch

The image above is what you see when you first open the Apple Watch app. The red ring is the calories burnt, the green is ring is the amount of minutes of exercise done and the blue ring is your stand goal. With the stand goal you will achieve the hour when you stand up and move around for at least one minute every hour. When you first set up your Apple Watch it will prompt you to set a calorie goal and this is the goal the watch will want to reach each day.

The best thing about the Apple Watch is that you can swap and change the bands you wear with your watch. I have two Apple Watch bands. I use one watch band when I’m doing exercise and the Milanese loop band which I use for general day to day wearing with my Apple Watch. I use this band every time I’m not doing exercise with my watch. I feel it’s nice to have a different watch band to use for my daily activities.

If you have any questions for Louis, please respond below.

Your performance

A question for all referees: how do you measure your performance? What apps or watches do you uses? Please share your experiences below or get in touch with me via dutchreferee@gmail.com for an article on this blog.

 

Nike referee kits for 2016-2018

Always interesting news when a kit supplier shows the new outfits. Check out the Nike referee kits for 2016-2018.

There’s of course a black outfit. The yellow one is much lighter than before. There’s also again a green one. And the new colour is purple.

What are your thoughts on the different colours?

Nike referee kits for 2016-2018

 

The picture is from arbitre.com a French webshop that already has the opportunity on their website to buy them.

Curious what Nike has published before? Check the 2013-2015 kits.