6 December 2015
Last updated at
00:02
By Emma Forde
5 live Investigates
Nearly two-thirds of football referees in England say they experience verbal abuse on a regular basis, according to a new survey seen by the BBC.
More than 2,000 referees – the majority at grassroots level – responded to questions about the abuse they receive and how well the Football Association’s Respect programme is working.
Nearly one in five said they had experienced physical abuse.
“There is no room for complacency and we remain vigilant,” said the FA.
It told the BBC: “More extreme incidents such as referee assaults thankfully remain few and far between,” it told the BBC. “Across an estimated 1.2 million games last season the number of reported incidents amounted to a tiny fraction of 1% – which puts the scale of the problem into context.”
But Dr Jamie Cleland from the University of Loughborough, one of the academics involved in the research, warned: “These findings are quite concerning for the FA because without referees the grassroots game would not exist.
“Referees are the bedrock of the amateur game because you need a referee to turn up in order for the match to go ahead and so these are a warning sign for the FA.”
Case study: ‘He threatened to kill me’
Source:: BBC world news feed
