Employee Story Referee
Kick-off – and complete concentration!
Soccer mobilises millions of people: Up and down the country, fans flock to their team’s home and away matches or follow the events closely on their TV screens. In order to ensure that it all happens in accordance with the rules, league matches are overseen by a team of referees. Sinan Kaleli (25), in his day job core-making supervisor at Kurtz Eisenguss, is one of them.
I have been an active soccer player since the age of three, laterally in 2013 with SV Viktoria Wertheim in the Landesliga (district league). That means training three time a week plus matches or tournaments – reconciling that with a job was getting increasingly difficult.
I have been working in the iron foundry since 2007 – first as an apprentice foundry mechanic, then for one year as a journeyman in the core-making shop before becoming night shift supervisor.
. It was at a tournament that I saw a poster advertising a training course for referees, and thought to myself: I’m going to try that out! I took the exam in 2014 and passed it first time – and have been refereeing since. Hardly a weekend passes when I’m not on the pitch as a referee. I would never have thought that it would be my thing, or that I would enjoy it so much. And there is sporting competition here too; you can advance to a higher class, but you can also be demoted. You have to pass theory tests and be physically fit.
I was promoted fairly quickly to higher classes and am now refereeing right up to Landesliga – the class in which I used to play myself. So I am still close to soccer; sport is important to me. But I can give my all at work too. Last year I was asked if I wanted to become supervisor of the core-making shop and take responsibility for 16 colleagues – at the age of 24, at the time. Of course I wanted to! Initially it was a bit strange to find myself issuing instructions to the people who had taught me all about the job. But working together we made a good fist of it. The same thing holds true here on the core-making shop and on the pitch: Straight talking and clear decisions are the way to get people behind you. I won’t hear a bad word about my colleagues. I want to continue developing both professionally and in sporting regards as a referee; I’m still young.
When we go out onto the pitch as referees, we always know that complete concentration is required right up to the last second. Something can happen at any time – regardless of whether it’s at Kreisliga level or in a play-off, when promotion to the Landesliga or above is on the line. The mood is tense on the pitch and on the sidelines, and I can feel the adrenaline too – you have to take split-second decisions, and they have to be right. Without action replays or super-slow motion. I often go through the match again in my mind afterwards and check on whether I did actually get all the decisions right. I have only been refereeing since 2014, but it would be really cool to be sent to referee matches in the higher leagues – I am certainly keeping my eye on the ball!