Law lets kids get paid as refs

OLYMPIA – For years, youth soccer clubs in Washington have hired young referees – some as young as 10 – to officiate at games.

The problem?

It’s illegal. In general, Washington’s child labor laws make it a misdemeanor for anyone to hire a child under 14. The child’s parents can also be charged.

There are a few exemptions, including farm work, acting and housework. But there’s no exemption for youth soccer officials.

That changed Monday, when Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a new law allowing the hundreds of young youth soccer refs to continue working – and to get paid legally.

Of the roughly 4,100 nationally certified soccer referees in Washington, 550 are under age 14.

“We’ve been using young refs for a long time,” said Todd McGann, executive director of the 123,000-strong Washington State Youth Soccer Association. “It doesn’t matter what sport you’re talking about, everyone’s always short refs.”

Not that it’s a huge moneymaker. McGann said that officials are paid $10 to $50 a game, with less-experienced refs on the lower end of that scale.

Most total less than $700 a season, he said.

Still, soccer officials were stunned last year when someone checked the state laws about paying kids.

“We found out, sort of by happenstance … that our current practice of training referees when some are 10 and 11, that that was actually not a legal practice,” youth soccer association representative Vicki Austin told lawmakers three months ago.

“We’re a very volunteer-based organization, and so this really spread a panic throughout the state,” McGann said. “People didn’t know if we were going to get into trouble or what we were going to do.”

For now, the underage refs are called volunteers getting a stipend, he said.

That legal fig leaf will be moot once the new law takes effect in about two months. Oregon passed a similar law several years ago, McGann said.

The bill was sponsored by Rep. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek.

“As a rule, we don’t want children under age 14 to be employed, and for good reasons,” Lovick told lawmakers in February.

But he said he was impressed watching his 8-year-old grandson’s games and wanted to encourage the sport.

Since the state youth soccer association buys insurance for the referees, the bill originally would have exempted them from industrial insurance required for most employers. But organized labor groups balked at that, saying they didn’t want to make the exemption any larger than necessary. A state panel will study the issue.

On Monday, Gregoire was flanked by several 14-year-old referees as she signed the bill into law.

The governor is no stranger to soccer, to the point of periodically touting her college-age daughter’s victories before news conferences.

So she had some advice for the three young refs.

“Don’t take any crap off the parents,” Gregoire told them, adding that her own daughters were annoyed by all the second-guessing from the sidelines.

“Call it like you see it. Stick to it.”