With the soccer season starting in less than ten days, the annual referee crisis has struck again.

Just 19 match officials have registered for the upcoming season, leaving the Bermuda Football Association facing a chronic shortage and little time to resolve it.

?This is most definitely a crisis,? said Bermuda Referees? Association vice-president Deroy Butterfield.

?We see this every year nowadays. There are not enough referees being retained and we are certainly not getting the numbers of new officials coming to take their place.

?We would like to think some more officials will come forward but the season starts very soon and the situation is not looking promising as we speak.?

Last year there were 27 active referees taking charge of Premier and Division One games as well as the Saturday Commercial League and women?s, youth and Alliance matches.

This year eight fewer are currently registered ? not even enough to fully staff the top two divisions on any given Sunday ? and there are actually more matches to cover due to the expansion of the Commercial League into three divisions.

?I?m not going to call it a crisis but we are certainly deeply concerned,? said BFA general secretary David Sabir at a meeting called by his association to express their worries to the Press.

?For the last few years now we have had to rely on a dedicated core of officials and there is too heavy a burden on them.

?There is a referee shortage problem worldwide and we are certainly feeling the effects of it here. We would urge anyone interested in being involved to contact us at the BFA as soon as possible.

?It is a simple fact that there cannot be football without officials ? if there is no one to referee, there will be no games.

?We don?t want to reach that situation but we are certainly going to struggle to get all the games covered with such a small group.

?As things stand there are not enough officials to cover a full programme of Sunday matches and we can?t just rely on the same core group every weekend.

?It is not a good situation when you have officials working on four or five games in a weekend.?

Late last season, one important First Division game had to be manned by Butterfield, Sabir and Gregory Grimes, the BFA referees? committee chairman ? a combined age of more than 130.

The irony of the situation is that the BFA referees? committee are being more pro-active than in recent years, even though they have fewer officials to work with.

Monthly training sessions ? both practical and in the classroom ? have been staged throughout the summer to try and increase the standards of those officiating and fitness tests have also been held.

But numbers have been far from impressive meaning Grimes? laudable new policy of only giving the top fixtures to those referees who attend the sessions may prove to be unfeasible.

In order to try and improve recruitment and retention, the BFA are hoping to increase knowledge of the Laws of the Game among the clubs, to try and cut down on the ?them and us? attitude between referees and fans.

?We are staging a mandatory meeting on Monday where we go through the law changes and the controversial elements of the offside law,? continued Sabir.

?It is about trying to increase the knowledge of players, coaches, officials and spectators of the game. There are too many occasions where controversy is created where they shouldn?t be any because players, officials or spectators don?t know the laws.

?There is enough pressure on the referees as it is.?

And Grimes extended an offer to every club on the Island to go down to a training session and go through the laws of the game with the players and coaches ? the same offer has been made by the BRA in previous years although Butterfield confirmed it has never been taken up by any club.

Anyone in interested in refereeing should contact the BFA on 2952199.