Referee's
I've just read on the BBC Sport website an article on the abuse of grassroots officials and the amount of hearings that have happened because of physical abuse towards them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61425471
While I am shocked at the behaviour that some players, coaches or supporters think is acceptable on a Sunday morning, is it time that something is ACTUALLY done? The "Respect" campaign has fallen flat on its face and need another approach!
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At my son's match this weekend the referee was very good. Clamped down on everything and one of the kids got a yellow card and 10 minute sinbin for dissent (from our side). Our coach backed the referee up, as did the parents and there was no issues.
We all respected the decision, which is how it should work.
They've sent cards out to all coaches detailing some changes to rules in an attempt to clamp down on this stuff.
Where I can see all this going wrong is when the players, coach and parents don't back the ref.
The only way this will really work is if there are points deductions and bans but that also needs to happen at the top of the game as well.
In a report in the Torygraph today I saw that a junior League - in Liverpool IIRC - had cancelled an entire weekends set of fixtures in response to the increasin number of worrying instances of referees being abused.
Shocking state of affairs.
The issue is when the FA will go out and ban players or punish clubs (and they tell the parents/player not come back) They'll just join another team and the issue starts all over again. A player will get a lengthy ban but will still be playing the next weekend as he's taken the name of someone else.
When I was at school, I heard of a U15's County Cup game (that involved people from my year group) had to be abandoned due to 5 players being send off. After the 4th player was red carded, the coach actively encouraged 1 player to keep verbally abusing the ref until he was sent off. All of the players & club appealed the red cards and misconduct and 4 out of the 5 players were let off and the county ordered the game to be replayed with the same ref.
The club in question went through as the home club (that didn't cause issues) and the referee refused to play the match.
There is no support from County or National FA's, it is very much a sink or swim environment out on a football pitch on a Sunday morning which is wrong on so many levels at Grassroots
On a related-ish note, Ashely Williams was last week charged with improper conduct after allegedly assaulting a coach at his son's under-12s game and last night in their infinite wisdom MOTD chose to use him as a pundit.
I am led to believe that there where some 40+ adults there who bore witness to Ashley Williams defence? Not as clear cut as it may seem.
Shall we just agree that grassroot football has gone to pot?
Nothing to say about the facts of this event, being totally ignorant of it, but one wonders how a spectator carrying out their proper function of, you know, spectating ever comes to be engaged in conversation with a referee during a game let alone one involving any kind of conflict.
Hang on. Coach, not referee. Nonetheless, the point remains. If the coach is doing their 'job' properly and the spectator theirs, there's no way this can happen. (I should clarify, I am addressing more the standards of behaviour at football generally rather than the rights and wrongs of Ashley Williams's conduct.
As a ref myself, I always use a "trick" I learnt aged 14 playing local League Division 1 seniors. I was playing for Bass FC. Another local brewery, Ind Coope, also played in Division 1 and the games between the 2 were feisty. First game that season between the 2 the ref went into both dressing rooms pre game and told the sides exactly what he expected from them and also what they could expect from him. The game was still feisty but there was no boiling over of tempers, nobody slagged the ref etc. All because he'd said what was what before the game. Nobody wanted a booking or a sending off and the subsequent fine. Everything was done within the rules. Only just, though. The ref did what he'd said he would and the players understood that anything excessive, physical or verbal, would get treated harshly. I have found over the 20 years since qualifying as a ref that it works. Unless there's questions, such a little chat takes about 90 seconds. Well worth the time.
I don't think we need any new rules or new explanations of existing ones. We just need to have refs adhering to the rules we have and to act when they are broken. All of them with every rule (Law). If a player knows how a ref will react, he's less likely to "misbehave".
Pierre Louigi Collina was the best ref ever. One stare from those eyes was enough!
The comment so often used about referees is that they "don't know the game" so I wonder why more players don't take it up. If the FA would fast-track former players they would be more inclined to do so. Top referees are well paid so it would be a very viable follow on career. It works in cricket so why not in football?
Cue chants of 'The referee's a player'
Referees need an encyclopaedic knowledge of the laws of the game and how to apply them. Out of all stakeholders (referees, players, fans, pundits, managers, owners) referees know the laws of the game far far better than anyone.
If ex-footballers want to put in the work and do it then fair play to them, it would be interesting to see how they get on. But sitting in a studio saying "if you've played the game you know what he's doing there" or any other such meaningless platitude in no way qualifies them to referee a game of football.
They also know the abuse that referee's get and prob gave a some of it out when they were playing and don't want it aimed back at them. They can give it out but can't take it
I think it would be a good idea to get all (or at least a proportion of) Academy players to learn to be referees. I actually think it would help their understanding of the game as a whole and if they were to referee at school level or similar may help the behaviour of younger footballers. It may also become a viable career path for some of those players who get unceremonious dumped.
I think this is a great idea but I don't think clubs will look at this option. The main reason behind it is that it'll take time and hours away from their training and development and could also add as a distraction from what they are there to do which is play football.
You are very limited on how far you can progress in the system as a ref by your age when you get into it, this puts lots of people I’ve known off.
Agreed. If you are 35 + by the time that you've reached Level 4 (being a ref for clubs like Flackwell Health & Assistant for Thame Utd) the FA stop inviting you to their training sessions