Referee Information

Want to become a Soccer Referee?

CSA is always looking for qualified people to referee games. You must be at least 13 years old or older to take the Grassroots Referee course through US Soccer. Courses are usually held in the late summer and late winter to prepare referees for the upcoming seasons. Refresher courses are taken annually and must be taken to be recertified every year.

The Grassroots Referee course consists of an online portion through the US Soccer Digital Learning Center (DLC) plus an In-Person portion offered by Maryland. Students are required to complete all portions of the online and in-person course in order to become a referee.

Grassroots Referee Course

  • If you register to take the Grassroots Referee course, you must complete the online portion of the training prior to attending an In-Person class.
  • These online sessions will take approximately 5-6 hours to complete, so allow yourself sufficient time.
  • You do not have to do the entire online portion all at one time.
  • You can exit the course and resume until you have completed it.
  • If you do not complete all sessions prior to the In-Person course, you will be removed from that course and will offer the opportunity to attend a different one.
  • The In-Person class is typically held in the evening or weekends.

NOTE: If you register and pay and decide you can’t make the course send an email to the Lead Instructor or the SDI and they will remove you. Your payment will still be good for another clinic. If you decide you want a refund, the State will refund all monies except for the $5.00 State Administration Fee. This is to recover the cost for the system and mandatory background check.

Every referee 18 years of age and older MUST complete SafeSport training in order to officiate any games. If you turn 18 between October 2nd, 2019 to June 30th, 2020 you will have 30 days after you turn 18 to complete this Safe Sport training. This training will take approximately 2.5 hours and is mandatory.

You are required to complete this no later than October 1st, 2019. Instructions how to access the training can be found here.

When you successfully complete training, you will receive a “SafeSport Trained”certificate. Save this certificate (.pdf file). You may need to upload it to US Soccer at a later time.

THIS IS A MANDATORY REQUIREMENT! If you do not complete this training by October 1st, 2019, you will no longer be licensed as a USSF Referee.