The Birmingham boys&8217; metro soccer tournament is in full swing this week with the final games scheduled for tomorrow night.

True to the tournament&8217;s history, the games have been action-packed as local rivalries are renewed.

But this year&8217;s tournament could wind up going down in history with a big black eye. No, it&8217;s not an organizational problem or lack of participation from local schools.

There&8217;s no question that the level of competition is as high as ever this year.

The problem with this year&8217;s metro tournament lies in the referee format. According to a number of local soccer coaches, this year&8217;s tournament organizers are struggling to find enough referees to officiate games.

As a result, there are currently only two officials working every game. This format calls for these officials to call fouls, give out cards and make offside and out-of-bounds calls.

There are no line officials in this format, leaving each of the referees that are working the game more than half of the field, at times, to cover.

The negatives to this system are obvious.

When there is one official calling the game, the foul calls are coming from the same person. In the metro tourney&8217;s situation, however, both referees are calling infractions. Players are having to figure out how each referee is going to call each end of the field. What one official sees at one end is oftentimes called differently at the other.

Coaches and players have expressed their frustration throughout the tournament with the lack of consistency that comes with the referee system.

While these officials are not at fault for the way they&8217;re calling these games, the system all-too-often lends itself to errors.

How do you fix this problem?

Well, this year you can&8217;t.

But as organizers plan for next year&8217;s event, they need to take into consideration the issues that arise with the dual-ref system. If there&8217;s any way to avoid using only two officials, I feel we can all agree that it&8217;s in the best interests of the players, coaches and officials at the game to do so