Hi Chris, I started as a referee round about 30 years ago under IJF rules in Judo. I had around 1.000 matches on different levels as a referee and it ended with an „International Masters“ tournament in Bremen in 2000. -The rules changed in a direction which was straight against my understanding of Judo. Later I had a few referee -jobs on different regional and independend JJ and grappling competitions (called „kingz of cauliflower“ and „lions cup“ and funny stuff like that). During the last years there were two or three comebacks under IJJF-rules during the regional state championchips in northern Germany (they ran out of referees and I was available…). Thats it. But generally I am interested in an exchange of experiences about ref matters until today.☝🏼

While you guys are sharing experiences. What ever happened to refs stopping matches before something breaks or tears at white and blue? In Holland that doesnt seem to be a thing anymore. Am i just old, cuz ive seen my members dislocating some joints, when I feel it should’ve been stopped

Started as a ref for local events about 25 years ago, started as IBJJF Ref 15 Years ago, stopped after some years, since then I was ref for ADCC national and AJP international on and off. For some years now I ref DJJV, JJEU and JJIF events, serving as the european head ref.

Athlete safety should be the referees number 1 priority.

I agree that an athlete's safety should be a number 1 priority. Now, specific question(s) for the referees from an athlete's perspective. If an athlete would like to participate in your event as a competitor and pay for an entry fee, how could you provide safety and security during the event? If the match where they would compete will be judged by a convicted/non-convicted abuser, would your organization be able to make a switch during the match? What are the rights as an athlete, competitor, and paying customer? What would be fair to do when the athlete is made aware of the presence of the abuser? Is the athlete allowed to request a change before the match? What is the proper etiquette to follow? Your answer, given your experience, is much appreciated.

A venue could easily justify barring participation from those convicted in a criminal court of: 1) Sexual assault, or any crime of serious violence, and/or 2) Making false accusations of sexual assault, or false accusations of any felony crime. Potential participants in either the #1 and/or the #2 do have criminally convicted past history of the most vile sort, regarding criminally endangering the welfare and well being of others. I would not include judgements of a civil court, in either case, as in the United States, for instance, civil courts have much lower standards of evidence regarding liability, than criminal courts regarding guilt. And in any case, in the United States one can never be found "guilty" of anything in a civil court, only liability is adjudicated. Determining guilt or innocence of crimes in the United States is the sole provenance of criminal courts, or is supposed to be. And, in all cases, precluding someone simply based on an unconfirmed rumor in the United States could itself be an actionable liability, if it was found to be discriminatory, or done in a defamatory way. Meaning, let's say for instance some one is accused of "rape", and the venue promoter in the U.S. was to preclude the person and announces on FB, or in internal communications, that the reason the person was denied participation was because "we don't allow rapists to participate", the venue promoter may have just exposed himself or herself personally, and his promotion, to a significant civil liability that could result in significant monetary damages - at least in the U.S. Then again, in the U.S., anyone may sue anyone for anything, but winning that civil lawsuit is another matter. Also, in the U.S. there is an old saying, that business owners often repeat, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason." However, if one then announces that the reason is a violation of civil rights to a protected class, or the reason for the non-participation is for a statement that is found to be defamatory, that can come with a serious financial consequence if taken to civil court in the U.S. In that case of the person alleged or accused but not convicted, it would not be the denial of service by a private organization, rather but the explicit affirmation or repeating of the potentially defamatory statement that would expose them to liability. An organization might be better to deny service and say nothing, or to say service was being denied for a defined temporary period to investigate the matter. In all cases, none of the above is legal advice. I am not licensed to practice criminal law or civil law in any State nor domicile. Check with an attorney licensed to practice in your domicile for legal advice.

The simple solution in the US is probably to just say someone is ineligible to participate if they are on a convicted sex offender list. Every state maintains such a list and referencing that list removes subjectivity from the situation; you're either on the list or you're not. But then someone has to be in charge of checking the list which is not as simple as it may first appear.

Unfortunately the list doesn't include all sex offenders, nor does it include domestic violence, abuse, neglect, etc. At our gym, we're happy to shell out the $20/month to run full background checks on our kids' instructors, so I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that these tournament promotions could do the same.

There is a lot of interpretation to a background check. ... Where do you draw the line?

It's not that tough, tbh. We draw the line at domestic violence and creepy kid shit. Obviously there are other things on there that would preclude you from working with us, but it's pretty easy to spot on a background check, and well worth the $20. We've run full background checks on folks who were not on the sex offender registry and found some pretty nasty stuff. I have no idea why they weren't on the registry, but I'm thankful we had that information, and that we chose to discontinue a working relationship with them. One added benefit of our members knowing full well that we run background checks is that it tends to dissuade the scumbags from even trying to train with us in the first place.

But is that line with allegations, convictions, or some other metric? Obviously someone with several allegations of DV by multiple people is probably not someone you want on your mats because conviction or not there is likely something wrong there. But without a conviction there is no objective criteria and objective criteria is what keeps you from losing lawsuits.

CBC's in the US include convictions, pending charges, and sometimes (as it's the case of my state, North Carolina) arrests. They don't include accusations. Ultimately, it would be up to the tournament organizers what to pay attention to. I'm sure there's already a system in place in other countries. My guess is pretty much nobody in the US is doing anything atm, including checking the sex offender registry. They don't have to, so why would they? FWIW, the IBJJF requires a background check to qualify as a certified black belt. Not sure about referees. I don't have any idea what they look for on the CBC though...

I was wondering what criteria you use at your school to decide if someone isn't welcome to train. ... When you get the CBC, what might you see that would make you turn away a potential client?

Gotcha. Good question. I would say, being a mom-and-pop (small) establishment, we have the luxury of evaluating situations on a case-by-case basis. Most likely if something that is more gray-area, I would talk to that person to find more info. I don't think one of these mid-sized organizations like newbreed, grappling industries, etc, would have any issues doing something similar; how many refs are they employing, like 20 or so?