Instead of taking any comments personally like you always seem to do then try to look deeper in it and look for constructive criticism instead of stopping at the stuff you like and refusing to see the rest.
Firstly my comment was not in regards of the situation which happened yesterday (which is completly different to the one happening now) but since you're the one bringing it to the table lets talk about it. If all your referees are players partaking into the tournament (which is the case) and that none of them are available when big matches happen then we do indeed have a problem and could please explain me what you've done to solve it in an efficient way?
The last time we talked about referees, you kept on complaining that 'too many referees' had been added by Pieter without your consent however you seem to completly neglect the fact that there is effectively not enough referees and that a good idea would be (maybe in future?) to have potential referees not partaking into the league and therefore with more free time especially at the moment all the other referees would be playing their matches. You ackwoledge that, this last bit, no matter how 'snarky' it might sounds to you, was a suggestion?
Having a match like the 17e vs the 96y left without a referee was going to be a problem, everyone knew that and those issues happened. Having people recording the event is a good back-up solution but it ain't sufficent.
On my actual comment, its been now several times I'm taking matches that nobody wants to take. I'm not saying that I'm the only one doing it, far from it, most of the referees are doing a perfectly fine job however I've seen others playing games when I was refereeing said matches and for those being on Mount&Blade Warband, there was not a EIC match to be played which concerned them which means that they could have perfectly been able to take that match yet they decided, for whatever reason not to. I'm not going to call out those people as it it is yours and Pieter jobs to realise if some of the people you've picked up for the job aren't assuming their fonctions, not mine.
I have events myself every single time I'm taking a match, on NW with the 17e or other mods, some of them being actually way more interesting and enjoyable than a EIC match but when I accepted to step-up as a referee, I also understood that people would need me and that it would eventually means prioritizing EIC over more entertaining stuff. My comment was only aimed at reminding that to some other people which seem not to understand such concept very well. If you don't like my tone, I couldn't care less, I'm being frank and honest, not disrespectful. I don't like your way to deal with critism either but that won't prevent me from raising any issue I find problematic when it comes to run the EIC as smoothly as possible.