Chapter Twenty Four - Whistle abuse!

Child abuse is acceptable in western society. Yes, you read that correctly.

It is a stone cold fact that children are subject to horrendous abuse, often in broad daylight and in locations as public as the local park. The abusers are often three times the child’s age and twice as big. But it’s not just one person handing out the abuse. Sometimes it can be up to twenty or thirty fully grown adults all abusing one child under the age of 16 on their own in the middle of the field. Judging from the behaviour of these people, they consider child abuse to be perfectly acceptable in a civilised western society despite the majority having kids of their own. It makes it worse when I tell you most of the time very little is done to prevent or defend the child from the abuse handed to them.

It’s a shocking scenario, but it happens more commonly and more locally than you dare to think. Judging from many people’s behaviour across the country, child abuse seems to be perfectly acceptable if the child walks onto a sports field with a whistle or flag in their hand.

“Hang on a minute, that isn’t child abuse” I hear you cry. “Abuse comes with the territory of being a referee.”

You’re wrong!

There is a difference between being critical of a referee and abusing them. Abuse is when it becomes personal to the individual, and as a result affects their performance on the field. It is not fair for referees as young as 14 years-old to accept that sort of behaviour. Unfortunately it happens across the country and in the grassroots of many different sports.

It is on playing fields up and down the country where junior players develop into the sporting stars we see today, who play in front of thousands of people and the millions more who watch on television. Unfortunately for the easily frustrated of parents who think their kid will be the next David Beckham, these fields also harvest the young people who have ambitions to control games at the highest level of what they do. Because of this the boy (or girl) in the middle will get decisions wrong, in the same way little Jonny will make the wrong choice and have his pass intercepted by the opposition. But no one will approach little Jonny with red mist and demand to know why they made a certain decision.

Just because a child wears a black kit and takes to the field with a whistle doesn’t justify them being called a “f*cking blind c*nt” or a “bent b@stard” by a fully grown adult when they miss an incident. Because they have a certain level of authority over their sons or daughters, parents shouldn’t treat junior referees like they would to Howard Webb or Mark Clattenburg in a Premier League game. No adult would do that to any other child in the world, and if they did there would be police action. It’s ultimately staggering to think that attitudes and behaviour to referees doesn’t change when you take away the 28 year-old experienced full timer, and replace them with an innocent year nine high school student who is about to take charge of their first match.

It’s taken for granted as a referee that they have to take a lot of criticism because spectators cannot accept the man in the middle’s decisions. As a result assaults on referees are on the increase, with 330 being committed across England this season. As a match official myself for the Rugby Football League (different sport but the principles still apply) I don’t expect everyone to agree with decisions made on the field. Most of that is because coaches and parents don’t know all the rules, but referees can’t submit abuse reports every time a parent shouts “He is offside” or claims their team should be awarded a penalty. That is not abuse.

However spectators and parents need to learn to accept a referee’s decision, especially when that person with the whistle is young and inexperienced.

It’s an old and terrible cliché but without a referee there would be no game. Unless there is a crackdown on these parents and spectators who insist on making an officials’ job more difficult, we could be looking at more referees strikes similar to that of Scottish football but at grassroots level.