OK, now let’s talk about Referees and cost locally:
AYSO referees are Volunteers and as such the IRS does not allow us to pay referees for services rendered, however, AYSO can provide volunteers (referees, coaches, board members) with a stipend to reimburse them for the cost of volunteering.  Each AYSO region can determine what that cost is and how much a stipend should be for any volunteer and account for that in their annual budgets for their regions.

Here are some AYSO forms for you to download and use

Click here to view the AYSO referee Stipend form

Click here to view the Standard AYSO Reimbursement form

Click here to view the USSF cross certification form

All AYSO regions may hire an independent contractor that specializes in refereeing as their business and therefore taking on all liability, training, expenses and such with running their independent contractor business.  You must have a contract that defines the terms and pay them for services rendered and report it to the IRS.  Please go to www.aysovolunteers.org and read the information on paying for services.

OK, now on to our recreational league.  I don’t know of any teams that have paid for referee over the years, we have just traveled to each other’s towns and scrimmaged with each other.  I know here in Region 1236 we provide our referees a stipend when they referee games in Amery, so we cover any cost for the games as a region.  I’m assuming that we all will take on our own cost per club for these scrimmages and not charge the individual teams

Other soccer assocations such as WYSA have fee structure they use to pay thier referees and they can be found here