We’ve all had difficulty getting the post delivered lately but on September 16th this year, I read an Express Delivery that was six
years out of date.
John Richardson in his column entitled Express
Delivery in a Sunday newspaper, reported that ‘Janie Frampton of Dorset has breached another male bastion by becoming the first ever woman in FA history to be appointed a Regional Refereeing Manager’.
The fact is that Janie, who technically is my boss as an FA Referees Instructor, took up the position on 1st September 2001, the same time as all other Regional Refereeing Managers. The position had never existed before and was part of the revolution by Adam Crozier at the FA, to improve the training and support for match officials.
One of the aims that Adam Crozier set for the Refereeing Department and the newly appointed Regional Managers, was to provide a registered referee for every sanctioned football match in England.
As many local clubs will testify, a lot of games each week go without a qualified referee. There was at
that time a shortage of about 8,000 referees. This year has seen a dramatic increase in that shortfall, with probably the greatest number of referees
ever failing to re-register for the coming season. The latest figures I have for Berks & Bucks, for instance, is 15% have not signed up,
So what has caused this unprecedented drop? The reasons are varied of course. One of my gripes over the years is that no-one has tried to ascertain accurately why referees quit. It would be an enormous task nationally but it could be tackled locally and collated. We used to do it when I was chairman of the Reading Referees' Association, by phoning all those who had not renewed their membership.
This year’s drop, however, is almost certainly down to one overwhelming reason and one which has been instigated by the FA itself. It can be summarised in two words – Child Protection. The training of referees
in child protection is nothing new. The training lasts for three years and I am already coming up for my third course, so you can see it has been around for some time. What’s new is that from the beginning of this season, the FA has decreed that anyone who has not attended the mandatory course on Child Protection and been cleared by a Criminal Records Bureau check will not be allowed to register as a serving referee.
Many have chosen not to meet these new regulations. It may be thought that a referee could still make himself available to take games without registering. However, according to the QC retained by the FA, anyone refereeing more than two games a month without being CRB checked, would be liable for a £2000 fine and/or five years in prison. This also applies to any competitions or indeed clubs who appoint them.
There is considerable opposition to these new restrictions. Some believe the FA and their Council have got it wrong. They say the law does not intend referees to be covered by the
Act which relates to ‘teaching, supervising, advising or caring for children’ none of which is undertaken by referees, who mainly go to different grounds, refereeing different players each week. They do not have close contact before, during or after the game nor the continuity that would allow exploitation of children.
Many referees who only referee adult games, say that under 18 football should be split from open age football which at present starts at 16. In this way those refereeing only adult game need not be restricted by these regulations. The FA does not agree.
Adam Crozier is now the boss of Royal Mail with problems of his own but the aim he set for those Refereeing Regional Managers back in 2001, now seems to be a bigger task than ever.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2007