Abuse of Referees

€350 on top of the dole ain’t bad. Lol.

You need to read it again. You’re not getting it. I’m talking about the causes of abuse. That could be anything from a bad decision to mental health issues even alcohol and I’m saying that assault is totally unacceptable. But you have to examine all the causes and address each issue . Even that won’t stop referee abuse.

Make clubs suffer and it stops it stone dead.

If you put your hands on a ref then the team should be thrown out of championships, leagues etc for the year and the headcases won't abuse refs because they will become pariahs in their community.

I know that sounds drastic and collectively teams will suffer because of one individual but it needs to be done. No amount of PR campaigns will have the same impact

If that was tried it would either work instantly or you would have the courts clogged up by clubs taking legal cases and the League/Championship suspended for indefinite periods with appeals etc. I suspect the latter.

Its not just young refs. Its all refs. It needs to be a lot more than annual training. It needs to be monthly at a minimum during the season with a half day session to start the season/year off. I wouldnt be looking for feedback necessarily directly from team coaches but i would have experienced refs acting as coaches/mentors/assessors and they watch ref during a game, give work ons/feedback at half time and again at full time and send a report in to the refs committee within the county which will then affect what grade/level the ref will continue or move on to refereeing over the coming weeks

I gave up on the thread

The lads back to the subtle victim blaming and are too braindead to realise they’re doing it

If you have a problem with a referee, you raise it to the County Board - You’d don’t abuse the referee or in the case of this thread, headbutt him out cold

At Intercounty level I generally see an ‘auditor’ at one in every three games or so (for what it’s worth). They’d be taking notes on the ref. I still don’t think the auditing is great for that level of competition though

Certainly not being done for camogie refs in Dublin, nothing near it - no fitness training, no encouragement to be part of the club, no referee training or analysis, just a WhatsApp group to see who's available on Sunday at 11.

Well it helps in rugby with the offside line and breakdown etc that the captain will be quite close to play most of the time. Not going to be the case in GAA if theres a moment ref needs to speak to captain and the play is up at your full forward line and your captain is your goalie

Thats what happens when theres a severe shortage of refs especially this year with som many club games going on at the moment..

" have you a whistle?"

" i do ..."

" off ya go then.."

Its a silly system.

Theres some very old refs still whistling round my area, but no new blood to take up reffing ......

They'll have an even more severe shortage if they don't look after their current refs.

I think you're on the money with those points! In our County, the Refs don't get paid until Christmas, in a lump sum for all of the games throughout the year. How can you expect young lads looking for a bit of beer money or whatever to wait until the end of the year to get paid? We've seen a couple of young refs give up here too and I'd guess it's from a lack of support from the County Board as well as the payment situation. I know of one lad who was around 20 or so reffing what I think was his first underage game and was petrified. The opposition management were a disgrace in the abuse directed towards him. He didn't do a very good job on the game and you could see that he was being influenced by the opposition management (it was also their home ground). He left by almost running into the carpark at the end of the game. It wouldn't be too big of a job to send an experienced head with a lad like that for the first few games until he finds his feet. As far as I know he didn't ref another game. You can blame the opposition management in this case but that doesn't change the fact that the young lad is not a ref anymore. Condemning abuse directed towards refs is a given that I'm sure everyone on here agrees with but it happens, and it will continue to happen unless something changes in the way young lads are thrown in at the deep end with very little support.

I can't see why payment wouldn't be every week like other summer jobs.

I'd agree that young (and more experienced) refs need extra training in both the rules and how they are implemented but also on how to deal with people. Some people have made reference to rugby referees: the captain can (politely) question a decision and the rugby will firmly explain why he made the decision. The captain may not be happy with the decision but that's the end of it. In my county, there are refs that if a player questions their decision, even calmly and politely, no discussion takes place, the free will be moved forward or the player booked. The player is left frustrated, the management/ supporters are left frustrated because they see the body language of their player and nobody is happy. We also have the opposite, where a ref will briefly and firmly explain the decision and everything remains calm. I don't know whether they do or not but a big focus of ref training should be on people skills: if you show respect, it's normally reciprocated. The authoritarian, no feedback style often ends in unhappiness on all sides.

Unfortunately, you cant change a persons personality on the pitch - Ref or Player.

Theres a few reiteoiri round our way that have the "no nonsense" im the boss, i know every law and rule" approach ... and have a condescending-power trip tone to everything.

And theres a few that will explain why he penalised the player for the foul (expalaining helps younger players understand) as well.

I reffed a different sport , up to NAtional Lge level, and when you start out , you start at schoolboy games, and then work your way up through the grades. At a local level you do have an assessor that will come to your games and give feedback/critique of the game.

So you could have 2-3 seasons experience of schoolboy before you go to adults, and then you do have to be a b)llix for a while , cos you are tested by players to see what they can get away with.

but after a while players know ya, know what you clamp down on, let them get away with, if you are weak, wont use your cards etc.... Same way as you know going out on the field what players are mouthy, dirty, sound etc.....

But all along we have assessors, and meetings , and an annual fitness test/law exam.

It does seem that we were managed better than the GAA are doing at the moment !

There must be very low morale amongst GAA refs, and they must feel abandoned by their organisation?

Many other summer jobs are fortnightly or monthly. It is expenses as well.

That refs dont allow questions is because of the attitudes of many other players/coaches and supporters so its natural they wont be as inclined to answer fair questions when most of the time they get abuse etc.

The problem of abuse is not connected with poor refs. It stems from a complete lack of respect such that some people think that they are entitled to abuse a ref based on their own opinions.

I had an incident recently where something happened off the ball when I was at the other end of the pitch. The mentor was going crazy demanding I do something, even though I couldn't have seen anything. And that incident then carried through the rest of the game as they were convinced I was against them, with every free given against them, or not given against the other team - in their opinion - just further proof I was somehow out to get their team. No matter what I said or did that mentor was never going to be happy.

Like in any walk of life, there are good and bad. Yes, some refs hardly move, come across as completely disinterested and/or don't take any feedback. But the answer to that is that both sides will suffer the same and it's just something to deal with. By all means write to the ref coordinator to point out the issues, but shouting or physically assaulting the ref is not the answer.

Players, and mentors, need to get used to the idea that refs are different and approach games differently. We all want the best ref in charge of all our games, but that isn't possible. You have to learn to play with what you are faced with. Losing your rag is a reflection on the person rather than the ref.

On the support issue, I agree. All newer refs should be accompanied to their first few games. Not to gauge their performance, although of course pointers should be made, as support to help if something crops up. Rather than letting some new ref be confronted by an irate mentor, the senior ref deals with the issue. That would help give confidence to the new ref. But requires additional resources.

Your putting blame on officials. Quite human if constantly getting unfair flack to deal with that in a way some may deem disrespectful or arrogance.

They are only connected in as much as they are used as an excuse for abusing the ref.

But it isn't really. Do you honestly believe that a bad call is reason enough to physically attack another person?

Or that by constant abuse of a ref that the situation will somehow improve?

100% have more training, more support, more supervisors and assistants.

But professional soccer has all that and still the refs get abuse. So nothing will ever be enough. Its the peoples attitude that is the problem.

this ‘cancer’ in the game can only be fixed at grass roots level. Underage Coaches and mentors need to instil it into underage players that no matter what the ref blows for, no matter how unfair it seems they just have to accept the free/card and walk away/play on and coaches/mentors also need to shut their big mouths on the side line, no mouthing to side line officials or refs during the game or at half time or after the game etc.

However controlling the mouthy yobs/ ‘fans’ in the terraces/stands who roar abuse is another story and I don’t think there is any easy solution as it’s a societal thing…..we all need to look at ourselves our behaviour towards officials and what example we set for the underage players/children….if decent/well behaved fans get stuck into them about their behaviour it may just end up with more violence against them…….very difficult to know best approach but starting with the underage and working up from there with the hope that the children will follow on as adults and resist the temptation to abuse/assault refs/linesmen etc…..after a generation or two the ‘GAH’ may catch up / be in a par with how rugby respects its on field officials…?

I reffed three games in the days after the Roscommon incident and the response to it from mentors and teams is certainly varied. In the first one (underage game), I got one shout from the line about steps, it was literally the mentor shouting steps and nothing else, and he subsequently apologised. To be fair to him he really didn't need to for that. The second one (also underage) was quiet on the line too apart from the subs getting excited. The final one was an adult match and one team in particular never stopped at me for the whole game. I personally don't mind it but it would get to someone that is maybe less experienced. It certainly needs to come from mentors at underage to stamp out the roaring and shouting over every call.

As regards refs not being fit etc,we done a bleep test before championship and most of the lads got excellent scores. I know other lads, like me, do plenty of work at knowing the rules, keeping fit and so on. Granted in my county there is a few older lads that still referee but they mostly do the younger underage games and without them games would fall away. Anyone on here pointing the finger at referees for abuse needs to cop on to be honest. Like anything in life you may get a mixed bag but no one in my experience goes out to make a mistake on purpose, and the vast majority of lads put serious effort into the role.

Does 'silent sideline' mean that a parent or mentor can't open their mouth during a game? Seems a bit bizarre....

i'd have thought the solution to this would be for mentors to have firm and repeated words with the two dads to tell them to STFU or shout supportive stuff. It seems a bit like the old 'punishing the whole class because of two bad boys' approach.

Thanks, that's very helpful. I hadn't come across it in my years on the sidelines, but maybe it came in a few years after mine had gone through. I can see the merits of it, though I can also see it might take away some of the sense of involvement for the parents, who are, in fairness, stakeholders in the whole thing too.

Is there a difference in shouting

"Ahh ref come on thats a free"

"steps"

Or the new one "Thats a throw, he/she threw it"

And

"you blind f***er"... " FFS Ref thats a free" etc ?

Personally i think there is .

Its starting to head towards theres no 'appealing' for a foul anymore, as now thats classed as abuse ?