Whats the reason for it? I am also against it as teams could use it to point out my mistakes
It won’t stop anything from happening in a game. Let’s face it, how many people watching a game have their phones out recording an incident, that doesn’t deter anyone from kicking off. Just opens you up to potential physical violence when they then try and take the camera from you afterwards. I’m being extreme, I know but I just can’t see what it will achieve. I certainly won’t be buying one it they get the green light
It is specifically written into LoTG that they cannot be used, so RSUK, who are the ones championing them, need to lobby IFAB as there is nothing the FA, or any other association for that matter, can do about it.
Personally I think that once the red mist has descended to the level that someone is about to hit a match official, a body cameras isn't going to make a blind bit of difference. Yes, it could help for evidencial purposes after, but it is unlikely to prevent the attack as anyone doing that has gone well beyond the realm of rational thinking. There are also multiple cases of security guards and even police being assaulted when wearing them, and the perpretator trying to remove the camera from them to destroy the evidence. Which means you are looking at one that instantly uploads to the cloud rather than onto local storage, and the costs for those are prohibitive (and the question of who pays for them anyway is one that no one has been able to answer).
Finally, there is the privacy issue. If the recording contains personally identifiable information (PII) there are regulations around how the data, in this case the footage, has to be stored, who can request access to it, etc. All a bit of a minefield. And yes, I know that some games are filmed anyway, but that doesn't mean thery are compliant with regulation.
Personally I think that once the red mist has descended to the level that someone is about to hit a match official, a body cameras isn't going to make a blind bit of difference. Yes, it could help for evidencial purposes after, but it is unlikely to prevent the attack as anyone doing that has gone well beyond the realm of rational thinking. There are also multiple cases of security guards and even police being assaulted when wearing them, and the perpretator trying to remove the camera from them to destroy the evidence. Which means you are looking at one that instantly uploads to the cloud rather than onto local storage, and the costs for those are prohibitive (and the question of who pays for them anyway is one that no one has been able to answer).
Finally, there is the privacy issue. If the recording contains personally identifiable information (PII) there are regulations around how the data, in this case the footage, has to be stored, who can request access to it, etc. All a bit of a minefield. And yes, I know that some games are filmed anyway, but that doesn't mean thery are compliant with regulation.
Yeah I could see that happening as well.
Also we would need to think about safeguarding as at Open Age anyone 16 and above can play. So that would be another thing to think about.
I agree this is a legal minefield with storage of data and recording children etc etc and they all need to be resolved, if they can, before this even gets thought about. But the issue around people being attacked for the footage is an urban myth. I worked in retail for years and had to wear these in busy city centres. I never heard of anyone being attacked for that reason. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, just it's not high on the reasons this can't be put into practise.
I don't think you quite understood.
Basically the point is that once they have committed an assault on the referee, they then further attack the referee to try and get the camera for the footage.
It's not the instigator of the attack, but creates more of an issue as that then becomes a secondary motive.
I won't be wearing one myself. I am lucky enough to have never found myself in a situation where one might be needed. However, I understand there are people that will want to and of course that is their perogative
It doesn't remotely address the actual problems. It's a superficial, surface-level change that has multiple problems - cost, data protection, the issues James outlines with potentially incentivising more/harsher attacks and I'm sure others we haven't considered.
And all for what? So that in the small number of referee assaults, of which a small % don't get what refsupport consider appropriate punishment, some wobbly bodycamera footage can also be included to do little more than echo the referee's report.
Referees go to matches as neutral parties - if a referee says "I gave a foul and then player X punched me" and player X say "no I didn't", the referee's account should be sufficient. If that doesn't happen, the issue isn't the lack of some footage that won't be particularly conclusive, the issue is with FA panels not holding the referee account in high enough regard. And that's a much easier and more effective thing to focus on fixing than expecting each referee to pay £100+ for a camera on top of all the other kit they need.
And all for what? So that in the small number of referee assaults, of which a small % don't get what refsupport consider appropriate punishment, some wobbly bodycamera footage can also be included to do little more than echo the referee's report.
Referees go to matches as neutral parties - if a referee says "I gave a foul and then player X punched me" and player X say "no I didn't", the referee's account should be sufficient. If that doesn't happen, the issue isn't the lack of some footage that won't be particularly conclusive, the issue is with FA panels not holding the referee account in high enough regard. And that's a much easier and more effective thing to focus on fixing than expecting each referee to pay £100+ for a camera on top of all the other kit they need.
As James has said, I'm not saying that someone would attack the referee just to get the camera for the footage, just as I don't think someone stealing a pair of boots from Sports Direct would assault the security guard just so the footage can't be used.
But if the red mist has descended on a player to the extent that he is willing to seriously assault a referee, do you really think he then wouldn't try to remove the evidence of it? It has even happened on those real life fly on the wall documentaries where people have assaulted police officers and then tried to get the camera (a pointless exercise as I'm pretty sure they are network connected so the footage will be stored online).
I liken it to some extent to being at work. If we have a serious IT outage we conduct a root cause analysis and look to fix whatever that root cause is. Referees wearing body cams would be akin to us getting someone to watch the failing IT component 24x7 in case it breaks, rather than fixing whatever cause it to break. It is papering over the cracks.
What needs to change is offenders being sanctioned correctly. There are lots of cases where there has been clear video evidence from the side lines, like the Satyam Toki case, where the sanctions handed out have been pathetic and nowhere near the FA's maximum sanctions. That should improve as I believe all serious cases are now passed up to the FA rather than being dealt with by CFAs, but that is no guarantee. I've been to an FA commission at Wembley where one of the elderly commission members kept falling asleep and clearly couldn't have been paying attention to the case, although I think that was before the age limit was brought in for council members so it may be better now. The answer is simple, if you seriously assault a match official, and when that happens the opposition will almost always provide evidence, and you are found guilty then it is a sine die ban with no review for a minimum of 10 years.
Notwithstanding the privacy issues, I think the point of the camera is not so much to prevent physical attacks as it is to, as you have written, have video evidence of any bad behaviour. Furthermore, it would allow an observer or association to see an event from the referee's POV when something questionable has come into play.
The main benefit would be that when accusations of misconduct are brought before a hearing, there would be video evidence of such misconduct.
That said, I'm quite sure I would never buy one; if it were provided for me, I would not be opposed to using it.
