Average retiring age for officials??

[Forksref]

Originally Posted by jjrye22

Do we draw a distinction between retiring and quiting?
We have a low level of retention here, and a LOT of officials stop after 2-4 years, so I would put the average age at... 25-27?
As for people who have officiated at least 10 years - the average age might be something like 55.

What is causing the low level of retention? We have a program here that is helping to retain the rookies and it has seen some great results, not only retaining but developing them faster.

[jjrye22]

Probably the biggest factor for loosing officials is that some are not really there of their own free will.

To have enough warm bodies around our association has a requirement that each team needs to provide 2 people willing to officiate + 1 more person per additional team (men's, youth A and B, flag, ladies). So the teams dredge up people to send to the training.

Some are actually interested, some do it for their team (players or ex-players ususally), some want to make a little money. Many are quite young and stop playing after a few years, or go off to University, or finally get a girlfriend... And loose an interest altogether in the sport (which is loosing popularity here in Germany).

The system is not as bad as I make it sound though. There are a few new people each year that find it an avocation and stay on.