FOOTBALL, like so many sports, can be a frustrating game.

Ask anyone who's ever played - there can't be many in Bermuda who at some point haven't - and they'll have a story to tell. Either about the offside goal that never was or vice-versa, about the blatant handball that everybody saw except the referee, or the crunching tackle that went unpunished.

There's always reason for someone to feel aggrieved and the injustices of the game are prevalent not only on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon here in Bermuda but at the highest level.

Take Italy's elimination from this year's World Cup. If ever a team had cause for complaint it was the Azurri who found themselves bundled out of the most prestigious of all competitions after a catalogue of appalling decisions.

Nothing could have been as hard to swallow as their acceptance of officiating which bordered on the criminal.

Yet accept it they did.

There was, of course, no alternative.

At times, football can be as much about human error as it can the ability of the players.

Results often hinge on a single decision that has to be made without time for reflection.

Invariably the poor old ref has to take the flak. Sometimes he deserves it, sometimes not.

But that's the nature of the sport. Football isn't a game of just 22 players, it's a game of 22 players and three officials. And the trio in black are equally as important as every one else. Without them we couldn't play the game.

And, indeed that's exactly the crossroads we've reached here in Bermuda.

Such is the shortage of officials that matches are actually having to be postponed for no other reason than that.

With no referees or assistants available, last Sunday's season-opening First Division game between Wolves and Prospect had to be called off.

Sunday's Premier match between Somerset and Boulevard erupted into controversy when only one linesman - a rookie at that - turned up and on the other side of the pitch a Somerset player volunteered to run the line.

A couple of dubious decisions later all hell broke loose. At least two bottles, we're told, were hurled from the sidelines and the game was in danger of being abandoned.

The shortage has reached crisis proportions.

Yet, with the abuse refs and their assistants receive in Bermuda, is there any wonder?

Until a measure of respect is afforded those who give up their time to officiate games, then there's unlikely to be any increase in numbers.

Given the current circumstances, a temporary solution might be for Bermuda Football Association to insist that every club registered with the league be required to provide at least one official from within their own organisation.

That person would, of course, have to undergo the necessary training and then be assigned to matches not involving his or her club.

Those teams refusing to comply would be suspended from all play.

That might sound like taking the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut, but given the situation Bermuda football now finds itself in, there's cause for quick and drastic measures.

Football, quite simply, can't survive without the men in the middle.

And if they're not going to step forward voluntarily, the game's going to have to go and get them.

Meanwhile, a little more tolerance on the part of the players, coaches and, in particular, the fans, would also go a long way towards boosting the ranks.

- ADRIAN ROBSON