Sadden to hear this 😢 - No Ref No Game !
My son is one of the nicest, kindest people you will meet so it absolutely hurts my heart that as a referee - he has to put up with some of the most abusive comments & behaviour.
He has put hours of training, reading, DBS checks, health & safety training & more into something he always dreamed of doing.
Recently, he refereed at a tournament, where he encountered the most disgusting verbal abuse, personal comments & a frightening situation which could of escalated very quickly.
This was not banter, this was abuse at it's worse.
Luckily, the person there who was in charge of the referees dealt with this appropriately & removed the whole team from the tournament. They were disqualified on the spot.
My lad has been so put off by the level of abuse that he has witnessed directly & towards other referees in the last few months, that he has decided to chuck in a job he was so passionate about doing.
£30 to spend 90 minutes or more being told you are rubbish, blind, biased, incapable of doing your job, useless plus the personal comments & even threatened with "we will be waiting for you in the car park" is totally & utterly disgraceful behaviour.
Respect your referees or lose them. Countless qualified referees are walking away from this job every day as they are worth more than the abuse they receive.
These referees are also human, they have feelings, things going on in their lives that you know nothing about & these words can have consequences.
#respectinfootball #refereeappreciation #FootballRespect #TeamGrassroots