Legal & Content Information

1. About Whistle

Whistle is an independent, nonprofit educational project created to give soccer referees additional opportunities to practice making decisions using real match situations.

The purpose of Whistle is referee education and training. Referees can watch an incident, make a decision, and then review an explanation of the play. Whistle is intended to supplement, rather than replace, formal referee education, instruction, assessment, or the official Laws of the Game.

2. Third-Party Video Content

Whistle does not claim ownership of third-party match footage displayed through the website.

Videos used in Whistle training scenarios are displayed through third-party video services, including YouTube. Whistle does not represent that it owns the underlying match footage, broadcast, recording, commentary, graphics, trademarks, or other material contained in those videos.

Ownership and other rights associated with third-party videos remain with their respective creators, uploaders, broadcasters, leagues, clubs, organizations, licensors, and other applicable rights holders.

3. How YouTube Videos Are Displayed

Whistle does not download and then re-upload YouTube videos in order to present its training scenarios. Instead, YouTube-hosted videos are displayed using YouTube's embedded player.

This means that the underlying video remains hosted and delivered by YouTube. When a user watches an embedded YouTube video on Whistle, playback is provided through YouTube's technology and remains subject to YouTube's applicable terms, policies, restrictions, and technical availability.

Whistle may direct the embedded player to a particular portion of a publicly available video so that a referee can focus on the match incident relevant to a training scenario. This does not transfer ownership of the underlying video to Whistle.

4. Educational Context

Third-party videos are presented within an educational training experience. Whistle adds questions, answer choices, referee decisions, explanations, scoring, and other educational material around the match incident.

The purpose of presenting these incidents is to allow referees to analyze situations that can arise during soccer matches and practice applying referee principles and the Laws of the Game.

Whistle does not provide the embedded videos as a substitute for watching the original video, broadcast, or other source material. Users who wish to view the original content should use the options provided by the applicable video platform.

5. Copyright and Ownership

Copyright and other intellectual property rights in third-party content belong to their respective owners. The appearance of third-party content on Whistle through an embedded player does not mean that Whistle owns that content.

Whistle's original material — including its website design, scenario organization, original written questions, original explanations, training structure, and other original site content — is separate from the ownership of any underlying third-party video.

6. Rights Holder Concerns

Whistle respects the rights of video creators, broadcasters, leagues, clubs, organizations, and other rights holders.

If you are a rights holder, or an authorized representative of a rights holder, and believe that content referenced or embedded through Whistle raises a concern, please contact Whistle with enough information to identify the relevant material.

Whistle will review reasonable concerns regarding embedded content and may remove or replace a training scenario when appropriate.

7. Video Availability

Because third-party videos are hosted outside of Whistle, Whistle cannot guarantee that a particular video or training scenario will remain available.

A video may become unavailable because it is removed by its uploader, restricted by the platform, made private, blocked in a particular region, changed, or otherwise made unavailable. Whistle may update or remove affected scenarios when this occurs.

8. Referee Decisions and Explanations

Whistle is a practice resource. Scenario answers and explanations are provided for educational purposes and should not be treated as official rulings by FIFA, The IFAB, U.S. Soccer, a state referee organization, a competition authority, or any other governing body unless explicitly identified as such.

Soccer decisions can depend on factors including the referee's angle, match context, the nature and severity of contact, and information that may not be fully visible in a video. Reasonable disagreement may therefore exist regarding some match incidents.

Referees should rely on the current Laws of the Game, official guidance, and instruction from their applicable referee organizations when officiating actual matches.

9. No Affiliation or Endorsement

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, Whistle is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or officially associated with YouTube, Google, FIFA, The IFAB, U.S. Soccer, any professional or amateur league, any club, any broadcaster, or any other organization whose material may appear in an embedded video.

References to organizations, competitions, teams, platforms, or other third parties are provided only when relevant to the educational material or the identification of third-party services.

10. Trademarks

Third-party names, logos, competition marks, club marks, and other trademarks that may appear within embedded videos remain the property of their respective owners. Their appearance does not imply sponsorship or endorsement of Whistle.

11. Third-Party Services

Whistle may link to or interact with third-party websites and services. Those services operate under their own terms, privacy practices, content policies, and technical systems.

Whistle does not control third-party websites and cannot guarantee their continued availability, functionality, accuracy, or content.

12. Nonprofit and Educational Nature

Whistle is intended to provide free educational practice for referees. Access to Whistle's referee decision-training experience is provided without requiring users to purchase the underlying third-party videos.

The nonprofit or educational nature of a project does not, by itself, determine the legal status of every possible use of third-party material. This page therefore describes how Whistle operates rather than making a blanket claim regarding ownership or legal rights in third-party content.

Thank You to Our Video Sources

Whistle would not be possible without the creators who make soccer footage available on YouTube. We sincerely appreciate the channels whose videos help make these referee training scenarios possible.

Their work gives referees the opportunity to learn from real match situations, review difficult decisions, and get more decision-making practice away from the field.

All embedded videos remain hosted on YouTube and belong to their respective creators and rights holders. Inclusion in this acknowledgment does not imply that any listed creator or channel sponsors, endorses, or is affiliated with Whistle.

13. Changes to This Page

Whistle may update this page as the project develops, as the website changes, or as third-party services and policies change. The date shown at the top of this page indicates when this information was most recently updated.

14. Contact

Questions about Whistle, its educational material, or a third-party content concern can be sent through the contact information provided on the Whistle website.

Rights holders contacting Whistle about a particular video should identify the video or scenario involved and describe the nature of their concern so that it can be reviewed.