NCAA Soccer Rules; 6.4.3 Scorekeeper
by John Puglisi, NISOA Past - President, NISOA National clinician and NISOA local assessor.
Many scorekeepers exclusively use a computer generated scoresheet to record the events of the game. In some cases, the scorekeeper does not print out a scoresheet for the officiating crew to review and sign. So what action should the officiating crew take in this case? NCAA Soccer Rule 6.4.3 (2015 version) states:
In addition, the official scorekeeper shall obtain the signatures of the referee and assistant referees on the official NCAA box score form or an 8 1/2-by 11-inch computer-generated scoresheet with complete game information after the game is completed, thus verifying cards issued, ejection reports and the official score of the game. This shall become the official record of the game.
This rule will be reviewed for the next edition of the NCAA Soccer Rules in 2016, specifically for the case where a physical copy of the scoresheet is not produced for the officiating crew’s signatures. In this case, the referee should encourage the scorekeeper to manually prepare an official NCAA box score form but as a minimum, the officiating crew MUST review and validate the electronic data before leaving the site of competition.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2015 at 10:52 am and is filed under Instruction with keyword(s) procedures,rules. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
As a member of NY Metro NISOA there are times when there is no score keeper present when games are played on non-school fields. This is a situation that is tough to deal with. As referees we report the cards that are issued to the proper authorities, but as far as knowing that a player is attending that school, or under suspension from prior cards, we have no information. These for the most part are Division III and Junior College games. The only solution is having a leagues assignor notify the referee for the next game that a player is under suspension for card issuance. In reality, I think that there is little chance of this ever happening. It becomes a case of See NO EVIL. Hear NO EVIL, and Speak NO EVIL. If assignors do this they may find themselves losing that particular conference.
I’d be careful here. In cases of accumulated cautions or ejections, questions of player eligibility should not be determined by the referee. The proper procedure (see NCAA Soccer Rules Approved Ruling 3.2.1.b) is to allow the player to play if there is a question of eligibility. The team fielding a potentially ineligible player runs a significant risk of having the match forfeited (Approved Ruling 12.11.1.b).
I’m not aware of cases where a scorekeeper is not present and if that is the case, I’d expect the referee to file a written report with the Governing Sports Authority.