Seems like it's getting more serious at amateur level with reports of physical violence. Being an amateur referee: your stories of threats and attacks, but a love of the game Has anyone suffered from this and what can be done to prevent the problem escalating further ?
Before I say what I want to say let me be 100% certain people know my thoughts on the above. Players or supporters who threaten or abuse referees need firm action taken against them. Every story from that link says the same thing, that not enough action from the local football association is happening. It is totally unacceptable. Every weekend my son plays a youth match and my daughter plays an adult match. The officiating I see is simply appalling. In the many years I've been involved in youth football I've never seen it so bad. It is now very normal to see a referee not open their mouth once during a game but just blow the whistle and point the whole time. The older refs are disappearing and the new breed are getting no mentoring whatsoever, and that's the problem. Young people refereeing appear to be doing it as a Saturday/Sunday job to earn money only, there is no love of the game or even experience. So the issues, (in my opinion), appear to be no action being taken by local FA's and new refs getting no guidance whatsoever.
A friend of mine used to do it each Sunday. He said he was quite happy if someone started abusing him, cos he'd just grab the ball, walk to his car and leave. Then he'd have his Sunday morning to himself.
[STUCK_RECORD*] From day one in, what used to be called, the Rugby Continuum (U7-U18) the kids have drummed into them you say one thing to a referee's decision "Thank you, sir/ma'am". When this is coupled with the ref's ability to move any penalty 5m for dissent it soon stops any "lip" to the ref.[/STUCK_RECORD] *Just before posting I realised that a significant proportion of the BBS posters might not know what this means.
Correct @Bwood_Horn , we teach children to call the referee 'sir'. When refereeing a match I remind the captains that they are the only two allowed to talk or ask questions. In 8 years I've only ever sent off one player, afterwards the boy and his mum apologised to me for his behaviour on the pitch.
It baffles me how anyone can get so angry with a referee or linesman about something that doesn't really matter, whether that's at a Watford game or Sunday league. It makes you wonder how they cope when something that actually means something goes wrong in their life.