Code of conduct

If you have a player in the NKYA youth soccer league this session please take a moment to read the Parent/Spectator code of conduct. The indoor soccer session always seems to be a richer environment for contention between Parents, Coaches and Refs. Probably because the game is faster indoor, there is only one Referee on the field and the Parents are sitting so close together.
If you are new to the game yourself there are two aspects of the way games are refereed that you need to be aware of:
First,in NKYA youth soccer there are very few situations where a direct free kick would be allowed as the result of a penalty, such as a hand-ball, being called. Rather, when one team is called for a foul the opposing team will be awarded possession of the ball through an indirect free kick, meaning the ball must be touched by a second player before a goal could be allowed. Because of this rule penalties rarely result in goals and therefore the calls a referee makes, good, bad or indifferent, rarely affect the outcome of the game directly.
Second, Referees calling our games will identify fouls keeping both intent and advantage in mind. This means that if a Referee sees, for instance, a player touch the ball with his hand the Ref will hold off on calling a penalty if in the Ref's opinion the touch was unintentional/unavoidable. Even if the Ref believes the offense was committed intentionally he may still hold onto his whistle if it appears that the result of the offense, i.e., the direction the ball goes, is to the advantage of the opposing team. So if, for instance, little Timmy on the other team reaches out and knocks the ball down with his hand but the ball subsequently bounces right to one of our players' feet and our player then has a clear lane toward the other teams' goal, well, in this situation the Ref would correctly hold off on whistling the play dead since the foul committed by one team ended up being to the other teams advantage.