Every referee in Berks and Bucks has received in the last few days or so, a
Respect Guide for Referees. This is about the FA’s RESPECT programme, which for anyone not aware is the FA’s response to the decreasing number of referees. There is a shortage of 7000 referees throughout the game, which means that every week 7000 games are played without an official referee.
The reason for this, the FA and most other people believe, is the abuse they receive from players, coaches and spectators and in particular at youth matches from parents, which has escalated in recent decades.
Leagues are being asked to sign up for the programme and in senior football and the professional game there are five key steps. The first one is ‘referee managing the game’, i.e. applying the laws of the game (so what’s new?).
Number 2 is ‘the captain taking responsibility’. Although captains have no special status or privileges under the
Laws of the Game, the FA believes that they do have a degree of responsibility for the behaviour of their own team.
The idea is that the referee may feel that involving the captain in a discussion with a player, will give the captain the chance to change the player’s behaviour before the referee takes some more serious sanction. It is however stressed that this doesn’t interfere with the referee’s
responsibility to take action when he feels it necessary.
The third key step is a ‘pre-match briefing meeting with
the referee for coaches and captains’, where the referee outlines how he expects to deal with any problems during the match and what assistance he may need.
Number four is ‘team handshake before the match’. Anyone who has visited the Madejski Stadium, or other professional ground for a match, will have seen this happening where each member of the team shakes the hands of the officials and the opposing team.
The final key step is ‘managing behaviour in the technical area’. This is the desire to curtail the excessive tantrums shown by some coaches towards decisions that go against their team.
How is this all working in practice? I know that many readers of the
Evening Post also go online to their website www.getreading.co..uk
where not only will you find this column but a great deal more news and information. You might have read the article by Roddy Slater, manager of Henley Town in the Hellenic League who reveals his frustration with the programme.
‘We have to go into the referee’s dressing room,’ he says, ‘reducing our warming-up time, to be told no jewellery, no swearing and he will try to let the game flow. Then we take to the field and try and walk in the correct formation to shake the hands of the officials and the other team, reducing further our warm-up time. How have we gained or given respect? he asks.
‘Then we kick-off,’ Roddy continues, ‘a decision is contested by one of the teams. F-off is shouted at the referee. The free-kick is taken and the team scores.
'For F-s sake ref' is shouted from the opposing bench. 'F-ing hell ref' is shouted by the team that concedes the goal. So can you tell me now,’ asks Roddy, ‘where has the handshakes and chat before the game and the posters on the wall established respect. Nowhere, because nothing has changed.’
To be fair to the FA, we must admit that their goal to ‘allow people to play, officiate and watch football without being abused, mocked, insulted, jeered, physically assaulted, unnecessarily criticised, pushed too hard, driven to tears or laughed at for trying’ is only to be applauded. It is early days and as they say it is a continuous programme, not a one-off initiative. However, Roddy’s solution is one you’ll not be surprised to learn that I back. ‘Ban swearing and the RESPECT campaign will work.’
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2008