A&H

Targeted harassment of match officials

S

Superhuman568

Member
I'm sure some of you are aware of the old firm that took place last weekend, the fallout of the match has had a lot of controversy regarding players and the match official John Beaton

In Scotland we have a registry of all match officials contact details, local RA and home address, as far as I'm aware only other officials and members of the SFA have access to this information, However it appears that some referees are guided by their sporting allegiance and have leaked the information of the referee of the firm, not being the first time the match officials details have been leaked when a certain side has lost the firm.

My understanding is the system logs all searches members make regards to other officials, so my question is if it's known who has been Searching Mr Beaton what sanctions would/should be imposed on the culprit?, I'm interested on other referees opinions
 
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Would have to come down to code of conduct and what the relevant privacy legislation is.

So are we seeing harassment of top-tier officials via their private channels? Has anything ever happened at the home of one of these officials?

Assuming it was another referee that leaked the information, I'd argue they should be permanently banned from having anything to do with officiating.

Now, there's also the breach of privacy - in Australia, privacy breaches can be met with huge fines or gaol time for individuals, depending on the situation. So, depending on the context and outcome there's an argument for further information.
 
Well the last referee that had their information leaked was Willie Collum and he was sent death threats and so was his family, bricks thrown through his home windows and he was under police protection, John Beaton's information was leaked yesterday and he is under police protection now I believe.

I think having the home address and contact details of our top flight officials available for all registered officials to see is rather stupid, this information should be held in private especially after the previous happenings.

I agree the culprit should be banned and fined heavily
 
Superhuman568 said:
Well the last referee that had their information leaked was Willie Collum and he was sent death threats and so was his family, bricks thrown through his home windows and he was under police protection, John Beaton's information was leaked yesterday and he is under police protection now I believe.

I think having the home address and contact details of our top flight officials available for all registered officials to see is rather stupid, this information should be held in private especially after the previous happenings.

I agree the culprit should be banned and fined heavily
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Yeah, I agree that there's no need to have them all on a central database, especially top-flight officials.
And in that case I definitely think whoever leaked should face further civil or criminal action outside of the referee's fraternity (as well as the people actually doing the abuse/threats/attacks, of course).

That can drive top-tier referees away too, so a lot of investment gets lost. Anders Frisk quit once his family started getting threats.
 
I have worked with 4 or 5 online systems. The only private/contact information that has to be shared with other officials is email address. Even that is option in one system.
They all leave it to the member to choose what they want to share with other officials. The most common is email address and mobile phone number only. Everything else is private to the member and the administrator of the RA/system.
 
Ridiculous that anyone private information is available to others, why would you need another referees address ?

The crazy thing about this affair is the referee on the day was excellent, he might have missed a possible stamp by the Rangers forward on the day but that apart he was very good and kept control.

Celtic coming out and issuing an official club statement regarding his performance is bang out of order.
 
The fact that the SFA allow this database to include elite match officials is absurd. Given the fact that this is not the first time it has happened, perhaps it’s time to review it.
 
spuddy1878 said:
Ridiculous that anyone private information is available to others, why would you need another referees address ?
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The supply league I AR on has postcodes available - I've used it in the past when coordinating lifts etc. with other referees. Makes things a lot simpler but can see how it would be open to abuse
 
I think the media are somewhat to blame for the abuse towards Beaton, considering the SFA claimed they would not review match incidents that the referee had seen, the Scottish Media have come out and said that Beaton should now have to explain his decisions, certain BT pundits have claimed there is a SFA conspiracy to stop Celtic winning the league, I've seen no such coverage from the media when these decisions go in favour of Celtic so it's questionable why they are targeting the match official now

I think if the team from the west end go on to win the league then other match officials will most definitely be put in danger with their details so available to any member of the SFA

That being said, do any of you feel like referees explaining decisions post match would help people understand more about the decision making process and help reduce these kind of issues?, I'm in no way saying it should be a necessity for them to do so but if a referee chose to then I think that should be acceptable
 
Superhuman568 said:
I think the media are somewhat to blame for the abuse towards Beaton, considering the SFA claimed they would not review match incidents that the referee had seen, the Scottish Media have come out and said that Beaton should now have to explain his decisions, certain BT pundits have claimed there is a SFA conspiracy to stop Celtic winning the league, I've seen no such coverage from the media when these decisions go in favour of Celtic so it's questionable why they are targeting the match official now

I think if the team from the west end go on to win the league then other match officials will most definitely be put in danger with their details so available to any member of the SFA

That being said, do any of you feel like referees explaining decisions post match would help people understand more about the decision making process and help reduce these kind of issues?, I'm in no way saying it should be a necessity for them to do so but if a referee chose to then I think that should be acceptable
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Absolutely. But the issue is that football isn't mature enough to accept the answers given. In the same way that the VAR process isn't communicated to the fans and that refs aren't miced up like in other sports. Football and the fans as A collective aren't mature enough to accept it. Too much risk of trouble
 
Ben448844 said:
Absolutely. But the issue is that football isn't mature enough to accept the answers given. In the same way that the VAR process isn't communicated to the fans and that refs aren't miced up like in other sports. Football and the fans as A collective aren't mature enough to accept it. Too much risk of trouble
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The only VAR I've known to be shared was last year's FA cup game between Chelsea and Man U, the conversation between Michael Oliver, his assistants and VAR.

I think more like that would be healthy to share, obviously not so much that it fears referees into thinking they will be blasted on match of the day if they mess up
 
Ben448844 said:
Absolutely. But the issue is that football isn't mature enough to accept the answers given. In the same way that the VAR process isn't communicated to the fans and that refs aren't miced up like in other sports. Football and the fans as A collective aren't mature enough to accept it. Too much risk of trouble
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Spot on Ben. I try to explain decisions on the fans site I go on. Although we all support the same club and some do appreciate me explaining things, most just don't want to know, accusing me of always supporting the referee - which isn't always the case - if I disagree with a decision I will say so, but, as we know, when we take off our fan's hats, most of us understand why a referee has made a decision and most of the time will agree with him.
 
Superhuman568 said:
The only VAR I've known to be shared was last year's FA cup game between Chelsea and Man U, the conversation between Michael Oliver, his assistants and VAR.
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The Dutch association releases VAR video (along with the aduio discussion) on a regular basis, and MLS in the US did release a number of such videos over the last couple of years.
 
Imagine if the officials made a mistake whilst using VAR and it was public. Celtic would be on the phone to the court of arbitration, Liverpool fans would have 7 million petitions and fans would kick off at the ground. In American football the officials get together, agree the course of action and then the lead official turns on the stadium Mic and explains it to everyone. If he's wrong then he's criticised as that's life but the decision is accepted because he's the referee and the 3eferees decision is final. It's a respect issue. Refs aren't respected in football, partly due to culture and partly due to our own acceptance of bad behaviour all levels.
 
Superhuman568 said:
My understanding is the system logs all searches members make regards to other officials, so my question is if it's known who has been Searching Mr Beaton what sanctions would/should be imposed on the culprit?, I'm interested on other referees opinions
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A simple search doesn't prove anything though, you can find details of select group 1 officials on MOAS, simply searching them isn't a crime. There would have to be proof you distributed these details.
 
Superhuman568 said:
That being said, do any of you feel like referees explaining decisions post match would help people understand more about the decision making process and help reduce these kind of issues?, I'm in no way saying it should be a necessity for them to do so but if a referee chose to then I think that should be acceptable
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Someone asks that every time a SG1 referee does a talk and they usually make the valid point that they would only be interviewed about mistakes and it would just be them stood in front of a camera talking about why they got it wrong. Fans don't care about or appreciate good refereeing, they only care if it is bad.
 
JH said:
A simple search doesn't prove anything though, you can find details of select group 1 officials on MOAS, simply searching them isn't a crime. There would have to be proof you distributed these details.
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I agree searching isn't a crime however a level 4/5/6/7 needing to look up any match official beyond a level 3 is suspicious, the only contact we have or need with these officials is at weekly training, we don't get put on the line for them or 4th official, I think any searches made after the 29th should be questioned, that's not to say anyone beyond a level 4 is immune from doing stupid things, but at they levels is a lot more time invested so putting it on the line is a big deal (in my opinion anyway)
 
Superhuman568 said:
I agree searching isn't a crime however a level 4/5/6/7 needing to look up any match official beyond a level 3 is suspicious, the only contact we have or need with these officials is at weekly training, we don't get put on the line for them or 4th official, I think any searches made after the 29th should be questioned, that's not to say anyone beyond a level 4 is immune from doing stupid things, but at they levels is a lot more time invested so putting it on the line is a big deal (in my opinion anyway)
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there has always been some referees whose details are not visible to all. Same as when we had the old paper handbooks, some refs had no details listed.
 
Ciley Myrus said:
there has always been some referees whose details are not visible to all. Same as when we had the old paper handbooks, some refs had no details listed.
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I believe those top officials who's details are removed are ones who have received abuse before, likes of Willie Collum, Andrew Dallas and Kevin Clancy, I was still getting paper handbooks till last season along with the online database
 
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