Very interesting feedback from referee Nick Murado in response to our Referee Development article on the IQA website: 

cool initiative, but the problem is not from a lack of direction from on high. if people take the time to read the rulebook, ask questions of those who are available to answer, and generally apply basic refereeing principles that span all sports, there won’t be that great of an issue. if people don’t take this time, then why will they take the time to learn what needs to be learned just because cam and chris et al say they should? the material is out there.

the elephant in the room, however, is not that IQA referees are (generally speaking) less skilled in refereeing than we’d like, but that the vast majority of people in this league want absolutely nothing to do with refereeing at all because of the absolutely atrocious way the players here traditionally treat the referees. not everyone has refereeing experience — if the IQA limited referees to only those with prior experience, then the world cup would probably have two or three fields running (instead of 9) and it would be the same ref crew every match without break. the fact is there is a massive shortage of supply to meet the extremely high demand, and those who demand it do almost nothing to help alleviate the shortage.

but steps like this are very good, for its better than doing nothing… i just would like to see a shift on the cultural level more than focusing on an execution and administration level