Mind your language, ref!

A practical problem

Verbal communication is now so important for referees that the IRB has a protocol on communication. Gone are the simple days of blow and show and shut up. Now there is all this business of management and prophylactic refereeing. That needs words.

This discussion refers to top players, who of course are becoming men of the world, and far more polyglot than days of the shoulder shrug and the uncomprehending expression.

André Watson was down to referee Ireland and France in Dublin. He bought an English-French dictionary. He and Tappe Henning and Mark Lawrence, all of South Africa, travelled by train to and from Limerick in the week before the match. They used the time to develop what they thought would be useful phrases, trying manfully to transcribe them into a form which an Afrikaans-speaker could pronounce.

Watson met Alan Lewis of Ireland before the match and, proudly, showed him what he had done. Lewis laughed. He then set about trying to give Watson some phrases.

Early in the match Watson penalised France for being off-side with a sweeping gesture and something that sounded like hors-jeu. Politely, Thomas Castaignède, the French fly-half, asked, in English: "Was it just me, or the whole backline that was off-side."

Using French may have been polite, but it may also have been a waste of time!

Peter Shortell, a wise man of Chelthenham, has worthwhile thoughts on the matter:

Picture the scenario. Japan meet Georgia at RWC 2007, the referee is an Argentine, who speaks Spanish and English. How will they all communicate?

The cynical answer is simple: badly.

In practice, we all know that English is likely to be second language for a few of them, and provide the necessary lingua franca.

After all, most of the top nations are English-speaking (without wishing to be unkind to Afrikaners, I shall talk of South Africa throughout as English-speaking). The teams will have played against them, and the referee will have refereed them.

However, some people resent this English dominance, and are looking for an alternative. Basically this gives us two proposals that are in direct conflict:

(A) Referees should learn at least one other language
(B) Use of English should be standardised and mandatory at top level

Let us first look at the linguistic situation facing the RWC. In 2003, 13 of the 20 teams were English speaking; two Spanish; and one each for French, Georgian, Italian, Japanese, and Romanian. In each Pool there were two non-English speaking teams except pool D. Matches between these were:

Argentina vs Romania
France vs Japan
Uruguay vs Georgia

Of the 48 matches, three involved two non-English speaking teams, 25 involved one, and 20 none.

(A) A referee cannot referee his own country, so each language must be taught to at least two referees from different countries, in order to ensure that there is at least one available. If we assume (wrongly) that all the referees are English-speaking, then six languages can be spread among 16 referees. It is not realistic to try and cater for the 3 matches listed above, and English will have to be used.

Allocation of referees is now partially determined by language considerations. This applies to at least 22 of the 40 pool matches. All four of Italy's games will be refereed by the same two officials. The Spanish speakers will have to cover six to eight matches between them, depending on what we do with the dual-language games. Without such restrictions, each referee could expect to handle two or three pool games. Under this scheme, some will get only one. Moreover referees are being appointed for non-refereeing reasons.

Some might still think it feasible, but we have not yet looked at planning. Let us say it takes two years to learn a language. The IRB would be asked to plan linguistic skills well before the make-up of the pools was determined. Morocco and Korea are currently ranked ahead of Georgia. What if they had qualified? Indeed, should not the same system apply to RWC qualifying matches - with an enormous explosion of the number of languages involved?

How would referees be trained alongside their refereeing duties? Would they take club/provincial matches in the country concerned? Who would pay, and how much would it cost? Who would decide which referees study which languages? Would a referee be denied participation in the RWC because, say, Morocco had not qualified, so Arabic was not needed, whereas Georgian was?

The scheme may look superficially feasible, but as ever the devil is not even in the detail. It makes no sense at all to appoint referees on the basis of non-refereeing skills.

(B) By contrast this scheme is not only feasible, but it is effectively the one currently in use. Each country knows that it will be refereed by somebody who will use a fixed number of English phrases. In Olympic boxing there are only three: Break, Stop, and Box. Rugby will need a few more, but creating the list would surely benefit everybody. We do not want referees talking more than necessary, do we?

All potential international players could be given minimal instruction in recognising the set phrases by their own people. Non-English speaking referees could also take courses. Games at just below international level in each country e.g. Heineken Cup, Currie Cup, could be refereed in the same way to give both players and referees the necessary practical experience.

Obviously there are times when explanation rather than instruction is needed. Either we rely on one or two players or referees having extra skills, or we may have to resort to specialist translators on the sidelines that can be called in when necessary. Whichever we choose, the problem is far more tractable, and allows us to select the best referees regardless of background, and regardless of who is playing.

It makes sense to me.

By Peter Shortell