A&H

Abuse towards referees.

No two referees are the same. Towards the latter stages of my refereeing I had a very low card count for dissent, but that doesn't mean I ignored it, rather than the players knew me and knew what I would and wouldn't let them get away with. And if they didn't know me the first player to even come close to dissent would get pulled aside to re-iterate the message to all that it wouldn't be happening in that game.

Comparing grass roots to senior levels isn't fair or sensible though. There isn't millions of pounds riding on your Sunday morning game like there is on a top flight clash, and therefore the refereeing will be different. At senior levels you aren't just managing a game, you are managing an event, and that is completely different. Doesn't mean that dissent should be ignored, but how it is dealt with may be different.
While I don't disagree with this is what it is and what is expected, i see it to be what the problem is.

We have a cultural issue where ALL stakeholders agree that it is not right, yet they all ACCEPT that it's part of the game. Any referee who continually has four or five yellows for dissent in his/her games (at grassroots) is seen as a poor manager of the game and has very little chance of progressing. And dissent at grassroots will never stop unless it is stopped at televised games.

Stopping dissent needs a holistic approach by all stakeholders. No point putting it in law but referees don't apply it. Or referees punishing it but administrators not support it. Or they support it but players/clubs continue doing it...

IFAB, FIFA, national/county/state and local FAs, clubs, players, referees at all levels, fans and media all have to do their bit and continue to do it to change this culture. Only one or two trying will not work.
 
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Just to pick up on something. I've stopped play in two OA games to caution for dissent. When the dissent is obvious to everyone, the accompanying IDFK gets everyone's attention and is more effective than deferring the punishment to a natural stoppage
Particularly if that results in a loss of possession, or moves the opponent further up the field
 
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True. But to ask an obvious question, should you be stopping play otherwise?
Explain
I know we never see play stopped in the professional game, but there's lots of things those refs chose to ignore. I've hereto not given this scenario much thought, but if a player has a pop at me with the ball in play, the game is getting stopped unless this disadvantages the opposition
 
Particularly if that results in a loss of position, or moves the opponent further up the field

Easy way to change that is perhaps the law should be the free kick is given from the position of the ball?
 
While I don't disagree with this is what it is and what is expected, i see it to be what the problem is.

We have a cultural issue where ALL stakeholders agree that it is not right, yet they all ACCEPT that it's part of the game. Any referee who continually has four or five yellows for dissent in his/her games (at grassroots) is seen as a poor manager of the game and has very little chance of progressing. And dissent at grassroots will never stop unless it is stopped at televised games.

Stopping dissent needs a holistic approach by all stakeholders. No point putting it in law but referees don't apply it. Or referees punishing it but administrators not support it. Or they support it but players/clubs continue doing it...

IFAB, FIFA, national/county/state and local FAs, clubs, players, referees at all levels, fans and media all have to do their bit and continue to do it to change this culture. Only one or two trying will not work.



your league/association or whoever, put their trust and faith in you to carry out the LOTG to the best of your ability
They then deal with the admin side. If we submit 2/1/0 cards (for dissent) then how are the powers that be going to be aware of a "problem"
for them to carry out their roles, we need to first carry out ours. That's the chain of command we are all aware of when we sign up
we deal with it on the pitch, they deal with it off the pitch....
so unless they do get 7/8/9 cards for dissent per game, they wont be any the wiser !! People really do under play the referees' role in this ! its always someone elses fault. A bad team, a bad coach, a team who don't like you, and so on....as I said a few posts ago, we have all we need to control the game. We just (def including myself!) choose not too
 
Dissent should never be accepted in the game. We, as Referee's need to toughen up on the Amount of dissent we accept :)
When it comes to dealing with dissent, the approach I use is as follows
1. ask the offending player to refrain
2. tell the offending player that the 2nd warning is his final warning
3. Card, as appropriate
 
I dont disagree. It does raise the question though,what other laws should we treat differently?

It isn't just laws, it goes beyond this. Having had some experience in the senior game, I can say that it is very different. At grass roots you don't have a safety briefing from the police and a steward as to what happens if there is an emergency. As a referee on your own on a grass roots game you are in charge, you aren't as a senior level referee and if the code word mentioned at the briefing is used during the game you give up all responsibilities.

At grass roots you don't get there 4 hours before kick off, you don't deal with TV floor managers (trust me, they are a real pain).

Refereeing at senior levels is fundamentally different to grass roots. Yes, the laws are the same, but you are expected to apply them differently and if you don't you won't remain at that level for very long.
 
Explain
I know we never see play stopped in the professional game, but there's lots of things those refs chose to ignore. I've hereto not given this scenario much thought, but if a player has a pop at me with the ball in play, the game is getting stopped unless this disadvantages the opposition
Simply referring to not stopping play immediately if the advantage can be applied. If those situation are not the case then there is a good case for the advantage and you shouldn't be stopping play.
 
your league/association or whoever, put their trust and faith in you to carry out the LOTG to the best of your ability
Not all the time. Which makes the rest of your post moot. They put their faith in me to manage the game above the LOTG application, especially at grassroots senior(OA) games. And that is directly related the cultural issue.
 
This.
And in my opinion, this is the root cause of many problems with the game today.
yep. I mean, even at local level we're stuck perpetuating a lot of problems, but it's worse at the top level. Which means that referees themselves are part of the cycle that allows abuse....heck, at the top levels I'd argue the inaction is so severe that referees are fully condoning the abuse culture. victims and perpetuators at the same time.
 
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It isn't just laws, it goes beyond this. Having had some experience in the senior game, I can say that it is very different. At grass roots you don't have a safety briefing from the police and a steward as to what happens if there is an emergency. As a referee on your own on a grass roots game you are in charge, you aren't as a senior level referee and if the code word mentioned at the briefing is used during the game you give up all responsibilities.

At grass roots you don't get there 4 hours before kick off, you don't deal with TV floor managers (trust me, they are a real pain).

Refereeing at senior levels is fundamentally different to grass roots. Yes, the laws are the same, but you are expected to apply them differently and if you don't you won't remain at that level for very long.



I was meaning what laws, I was not touching on the differences between officiating at higher and lower levels.
There is only 3 ways to deal with dissent. To ignore it. To warn. Or to sanction. Imo to ignore it, is not dealing with it, so we are down to 2 ways. Dissent is dissent whether it comes from Harry Kane or Harry Smith in the Sunday league. This is my point

My posting has nothing to do with differences between doing a senior game and a grass roots game.
 
Not all the time. Which makes the rest of your post moot. They put their faith in me to manage the game above the LOTG application, especially at grassroots senior(OA) games. And that is directly related the cultural issue.


so whats the link between managing it above expectation and not dealing firmly? with abusive players? The higher up you referee, the more you manage dissent instead of sanctioning it? Does your application of DOGSO change at a U18 game to a adult game? Do your ears hear diff things at U16 to adults? I hope and think not. Dissent is dissent.
if we send in 6 games of caution sheets and we have 1/2 cards for dissent, then, to the leagues, that's all the dissent offences we have had! They don't know unless we tell them and our way of telling them is to deal with the lotg on the park !!
if we send in 6 reports of DOGSO in our 6 game spell, then there has been 6 occasions of DOGSO!!

send in no reports of dissent or offensive blah blah, then to the man receiving the reports, there has been no offences.
 
It isn't just laws, it goes beyond this. Having had some experience in the senior game, I can say that it is very different. At grass roots you don't have a safety briefing from the police and a steward as to what happens if there is an emergency. As a referee on your own on a grass roots game you are in charge, you aren't as a senior level referee and if the code word mentioned at the briefing is used during the game you give up all responsibilities.

At grass roots you don't get there 4 hours before kick off, you don't deal with TV floor managers (trust me, they are a real pain).

Refereeing at senior levels is fundamentally different to grass roots. Yes, the laws are the same, but you are expected to apply them differently and if you don't you won't remain at that level for very long.




in the Kane example (which I have not seen) if he is shouting F OFF in the linesmans face, on what grounds is not a red card?
U11, girls U17, Sunday Ams or Spurs live on tv, that's a red card offence. To say otherwise is to neglect your duties.
What is your way of dealing with a player shouting F Off right in your face? There is no referee on earth who can say its a red card every time. On what grounds would it not be a red?
Yet give us a violent conduct incident and we deal with it correctly.
 
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in the Kane example (which I have not seen) if he is shouting F OFF in the linesmans face, on what grounds is not a red card?
U11, girls U17, Sunday Ams or Spurs live on tv, that's a red card offence. To say otherwise is to neglect your duties.
What is your way of dealing with a player shouting F Off right in your face? There is no referee on earth who can say its a red card every time. On what grounds would it not be a red?
Yet give us a violent conduct incident and we deal with it correctly.

Its called the Premier League.

Totally wrong but referees in the PL put up with more dissent than at any other level, they only have themselves to blame for this.

It might take 2-3 weeks of games being 8v9 but the penny will soon drop, if they carry on accepting the abuse then it wont go away.
 
Yes, the laws are the same, but you are expected to apply them differently and if you don't you won't remain at that level for very long
I'm sure you're quite right with this assessment. But this is a mentality which has broken football. Starting out in my 40's, It's quite unlikely I'll ever get exposed to such nonsense. And if I did, I'd push back and say no
 
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It isn't just laws, it goes beyond this. Having had some experience in the senior game, I can say that it is very different. At grass roots you don't have a safety briefing from the police and a steward as to what happens if there is an emergency. As a referee on your own on a grass roots game you are in charge, you aren't as a senior level referee and if the code word mentioned at the briefing is used during the game you give up all responsibilities.

At grass roots you don't get there 4 hours before kick off, you don't deal with TV floor managers (trust me, they are a real pain).

Refereeing at senior levels is fundamentally different to grass roots. Yes, the laws are the same, but you are expected to apply them differently and if you don't you won't remain at that level for very long.

I've been thinking about this and I find it sad that this is the case. Just look at rugby as an example - minimal dissent and when there is, it's dealt with. Makes the sport all the more enjoyable. If it takes a few seasons to change the culture by tackling dissent properly, absolutely fine by me.
 
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