Soccer player is jailed for head-butt on referee

godtabh

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A SOCCER player who pleaded not guilty to head-butting a referee was sentenced to three months in jail yesterday.

Judge Geoffrey Browne branded the incident as "absolutely disgraceful" before imposing the custodial sentence on father-of-two Pearse McGinley at Roscommon District Court.

The 34-year-old, with an address at Stone Cresent, Strokestown, Co Roscommon, was found guilty of assaulting referee Eugene Deering during a soccer match on February 24, 2008.

The court heard how the Strokestown United centre-back became abusive after receiving a yellow card for a reckless tackle. He later became aggressive towards the referee, forcing Mr Deering to issue the player with a red card.

Mr Deering said the defendant "exploded into huge anger". He said Mr McGinley became abusive, pushed him with his chest and head-butted him.

Local fireman McGinley said that although he was verbally out of order, "the head-butt did not happen".

The incident previously came before a disciplinary hearing, at which Mr McGinley was banned from playing soccer for five years.

Apology

The footballer told the court that after telephoning Mr Deering to apologise for his behaviour, he felt the referee had accepted his apology.

Four of Mr McGinley's team-mates who were present on the day of the match gave evidence to the court that they did not witness the incident taking place. The manager of the opposing team, St John's Athletic, Peter Tiley, told the court that Mr McGinley and the referee were face to face with "heads touching but with no impact".

'Athlone Topic' editor Mr Deering, who has been refereeing soccer matches for over 10 years, told the court he reported the incident to gardai in Roscommon town later that evening after feeling McGinley had threatened him by saying he'd "solve it after the game".

The solicitor for the defendant, Declan O'Callaghan, said his client denied the allegation of assault, especially that of head-butting the referee.

Pearse McGinley received two months' imprisonment for assault and one month for engaging in threatening and abusive words in public. Notice of appeal was lodged.

I've seen some bad stuff in my day playing football in Dublin. Refs been spat at. A deaf ref getting abused. A Polish ref getting spat at and pushed becasue he booked some one.

Refs have tough jobs and without them I'd have nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon

pwd

wtf did i miss something? There was a load of witnesses saying he didn't headbutt him and i didn't see reference to anyone who said he did apart from the referee. It seems like people are generally assumed guilty when accused of things, especially assault.

_blank_

All witnesses quoted in that report said that there was no headbutt.

How the hell was he convicted?

Gone Drinking

I know a guy who grabbed a ref by the balls in a GAA match after he was sent off. He ended up doing some community service i think.

But hes banned from from GAA for life and he's banned from all GAA clubs.

Savman

pwd wrote: »

wtf did i miss something?

Yes. The player should not have been anywhere near the Referee, and squaring up to him 'head to head' is equally as unacceptable. When you're booked, you're booked, there is no rule in the book that says you can hassle the Ref to overturn the decision, you get your sorry ass of the pitch, period.

I'd say in this case the Ref was able to claim some kind of malicious intent on the Player's behalf, which is a reasonable assumption tbh.

Karmafaerie

Yer man may have had a record.
If he had a history of assault, the allegation may have been enough to get him the custodial sentance.

Mitch Connor

Savman wrote: »

Yes. The player should not have been anywhere near the Referee, and squaring up to him 'head to head' is equally as unacceptable. When you're booked, you're booked, there is no rule in the book that says you can hassle the Ref to overturn the decision, you get your sorry ass of the pitch, period.

I'd say in this case the Ref was able to claim some kind of malicious intent on the Player's behalf, which is a reasonable assumption tbh.

So obviously he should be found guilty of a headbutt no one saw him commit.

pwd

Savman wrote: »

Yes. The player should not have been anywhere near the Referee, and squaring up to him 'head to head' is equally as unacceptable. When you're booked, you're booked, there is no rule in the book that says you can hassle the Ref to overturn the decision, you get your sorry ass of the pitch, period.

I'd say in this case the Ref was able to claim some kind of malicious intent on the Player's behalf, which is a reasonable assumption tbh.

he was convicted of actually headbutting him though. I don't agree that squaring up to someone is equally as unacceptable as headbutting them.

Yer man may have had a record.
If he had a history of assault, the allegation may have been enough to get him the custodial sentance.

on the other hand, if the referee knew he had a record he might have been more confident about making false allegations.

The law is that the defendant needs to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. That's not being respected in this case it seems.

_blank_

pwd wrote: »

The law is that the defendant needs to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. That's not being respected in this case it seems.

In fairness now, the report doesn't say it quotes ALL witnesses.

Maybe there were others who saw the headbutt.

Savman

Mitch Connor wrote: »

So obviously he should be found guilty of a headbutt no one saw him commit.

If they touched heads, one can argue it could be classified a headbutt purely by definition. If the player was aggressive, and the article mentions he was, then it's safe to assume the Referee feared for his safety.

Anyone who plays footy knows this scenario. Player does stupid tackle, gets carded, goes after the Ref. It's good to see it taken this far because the game needs more deterrents like this IMHO.

btw, the Judge obviously felt a headbutt took place by the sounds of things.

godtabh

I'd say that his own players would stick up for him regardless if it did or didnt happen. I'm not sure about the other manager.

They dont just convict because one person said he did it. There might not be the full story in the report.

The point I was trying to make was the refs need to be respected

chips1234

with the amount of abuse the ref's get you wonder why they still get up on saturdays/sundays to referee for us and get treated like sh!t for 90 minutes
its only a matter of time before something worse happens than this imo

Frisbee

We wre supposed to play Fatima one sunday morning at u18 and the ref called the game off as the pitch was like a bog.
One of their players chased him with a switchblade for calling it off when he was cycling away.
Fcuking nutters...

chips1234

Frisbee wrote: »

We wre supposed to play Fatima one sunday morning at u18 and the ref called the game off as the pitch was like a bog.
One of their players chased him with a switchblade for calling it off when he was cycling away.
Fcuking nutters...

lol i can only imagine the fear in his face and his legs going 90:D jesus there is some serious psycho's out there:eek:

shoutman

Disgracefull behaviour altogether, obviously getting a custodial sentance when there was no evidence of the headbut occuring is a bit mad, and i'm sure yer man will get off on appeal. But anything like squaring up to a referee is absolute nonsense imo.

As a rugby player you never see anything like this happen, its a change that has to take place otherwise teams will find it very hard to get refs at all. I think its clear from the top down where you see players swearing at refs after decisions go against them. In a match last season one of the opposition players got sent off for telling the ref to f off, and there was no complaints from his own team as its seen as unacceptable behaviour, as it should be.

Mitch Connor

I don't buy this crap about sunday league players treating refs bad becuase Premiership players swear at them. Absolute twaddle imo. People who intimidate the ref or threaten them do so because of their own short comings and lack of respect, not Wayne Rooneys.

shoutman

I'm not trying to say that sunday league people threaten ref's as a result of a premiership footballer swearing at a ref. But pro's showing obvious disrespect isn't going to help referee's at grassroot levels.

A rugby player a few weeks back got suspended for a few months for pushing a linesman in a match, rest assured you aren't going to have players at grass roots level doing similar is it is not tolerated.

Another example was a few years back when during an international match (South Africa against NZ I think), a south african supporter ran onto the pitch during a break and tackled the ref, both teams gave the supporter a good hiding and sent him on his way. Not that i'm condoning the response by the players but it just shows the level of respect for referee's, they are seen as part of the game where as in Soccer I feel that they are not so included. I doubt you would have referee's having a few pints in the club bar after a match would you?

_blank_

shoutman wrote: »

A rugby player a few weeks back got suspended for a few months for pushing a linesman in a match,

Examples of this from soccer please?

mayordenis

This isn't a law forum it's not right to speculate about him being wrongfully imprisoned from that small article with a few quotes - who knows what else went on in this case - and most of his sentance 2/3 months was for a threat which again may or may not have happened

shoutman

I'm just saying, that even after the Di Canio incident there still seems to be a lot of disrespect shown towards officials. I'm not by any means having a go at soccer. I'm merely just pointing out the difference in attitudes towards officials between the two sports

Xavi6

This is nothing new really. Whitestown United were booted out of my league a few years back after one of their players loafed the referee during a game. He was unhappy with a decision and just flipped. The referee was pushing 70 at the time. AFAIK the player himself got a ten year ban from all amateur football in Dublin.

Mitch Connor

shoutman wrote: »

I'm not trying to say that sunday league people threaten ref's as a result of a premiership footballer swearing at a ref. But pro's showing obvious disrespect isn't going to help referee's at grassroot levels.

A rugby player a few weeks back got suspended for a few months for pushing a linesman in a match, rest assured you aren't going to have players at grass roots level doing similar is it is not tolerated.

Another example was a few years back when during an international match (South Africa against NZ I think), a south african supporter ran onto the pitch during a break and tackled the ref, both teams gave the supporter a good hiding and sent him on his way. Not that i'm condoning the response by the players but it just shows the level of respect for referee's, they are seen as part of the game where as in Soccer I feel that they are not so included. I doubt you would have referee's having a few pints in the club bar after a match would you?

In a recent football match a player stopped a fan who had ran on to the pitch, and got sent off for it.

I'm also fairly certain if a fan started to attack a football ref, the players would not simply sit around and have a laugh about it - they would do something.

mayordenis

I think the most disrespectful thing I've ever done was in a somewhat "emo" moment said "whatever" to a ref when he was lecturing me.

shoutman

I'm not saying the wouldn't mitch, but in this situation where the guy squared up to the ref there obviously wasnt anyone there pulling him away.

_blank_

When I was a ref I booked a player, U14 or something.

He called me a "cúnt", so I gave him a second yellow, and sent him off. He effed and blinded me the whole way off.

His manager made him come up and apologise to me after the match.

I still reported his sorry ass to the league though :cool:

eagle eye

The report has to be a bit off tbf. That particular judge would not be in the Roy Bean category.

Also if thats all the witnesses, then this would not have went this far imo, maybe in a civil case but not in a criminal case. Well its very unlikely anyways. And I can tell you he has no record either so thats not the reason for his sentence.

If it happens to be all thats involved then its all wrong.

On the Soccer front, the treatment of referees is disgraceful. Referees don't get enough respect at the top level of the sport and this will always filters its way down the chain to amateur level, where sometimes it goes too far and ends up with something like whats been reported above. I like the system in Rugby where the only player who can talk to the referee is the team Captain and thats if the ref wants to talk to him, he can ask what a foul was given for and have it explained most of the time and thats it, no questions. Less time wasting and more football, it would be good for the game.
I don't know if any of you have played with a sin bin system but I did in the US for a couple of years and it worked very well, the referees get a lot more respect over there anyways but that sin bin and leaving your team short is a real deterrent against giving the ref any guff.

Funnily it reminds me of an incident where I took out anothe player, went down immediately as I knew I was in trouble and got stretchered off, I reached the sideline and my replacement was ready so I hop off the stretcher relieved to know I got away with it only to find the ref waiting for me and instantly showing me the yellow for the sin bin and I'm substituted as well so can't get back on.

Mr. Presentable

Mitch Connor wrote: »

I don't buy this crap about sunday league players treating refs bad becuase Premiership players swear at them. Absolute twaddle imo. People who intimidate the ref or threaten them do so because of their own short comings and lack of respect, not Wayne Rooneys.

I agree to a point, but at under 9s they hero worship Rooney et al and will ape everything they can. I imagine if you start out disrespecting authority at that age and keep it up for a few years it becomes your "style", so in that respect, yes, you can blame professional players. Though I don't - I blame the managers who don't put a stop to it, and in fact encourage their players to contest every decision.

Collie D

Was reading this in the paper the other day but was slightly confused by rhe picture. I'm convinced his jersey had the GAA crest on it. Maybe he played both sports but surley that was dragging his GAA team's name through the mud

Dave!

If he did it then he's absolute filth and should never be allowed play for a team again

Reminds me of that video of a 7ft (?) basketball player getting a call given against him, so he instantly punched the ref in the face, knocked him out for the count.

Filth

Mr. Presentable

pwd wrote: »

wtf did i miss something? There was a load of witnesses saying he didn't headbutt him and i didn't see reference to anyone who said he did apart from the referee. It seems like people are generally assumed guilty when accused of things, especially assault.

I think you imagined something.

"Four of Mr McGinley's team-mates who were present on the day of the match gave evidence to the court that they did not witness the incident taking place. "

The reporting is, however, sensationalist and light. It as you say makes no reference to witnesses seeing the headbutt - but that doesn't mean there were none.