A&H

Tolerance

dbo5ton

Member
Level 4 Referee
Match on sat, into stoppage time. I blow for a pull on the defender, attacker is captain and are currently losing 3-2. He straight away then became irate. tried calming down to no joy he then proceeded to say " you're 5hit" boom. red card.



After speaking to a few other refs, afew said it was soft or mismanaged I was wondering about other peoples leniency.
 
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Agree with above. Cant make any kind of one size fits all answer here. The OP sounds like dissent (at very worst)
Each situation is handled on its own merits.
 
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On another note, not sure if anyone else tries this. Sometimes I find the best way to calm a player down is to walk away from him and get on with the game.
 
Gobby players hate being ignored, if they carry on its an easier decision, they can often talk too much and talk themselves into your little book!!!
We are never going to agree on tolerance but he's certainly tweaking my 'don't run all the hot water off' ears with personal comments like that. A 'f'kin' chucked in their would 100% seal his fate!!
 
How irate is a piece of string?

Aggressive and "you're sh*t" probably RC.
"You are a sh*t ref" probably RC.
"Argh you're sh*t" frustratedly, maybe YC but TBH I've given a RC for it before - in a heated game, when a team mate has just been booked for dissent, when it wasn't the first bad behaviour from the player.

It is up to you. The other side of this is: if a player says this, they know they are risking a RC, their team mates know it, their captain knows it, the opposition knows it.

I strongly disagree with "walk away". There might be a case for strategically ignoring low level dissent at a distance but anything obvious one-to-one I think that is a rocky road.
 
I spoke to the manager after the game, and switched it round. would he appreciate being called 5hit? so respect needs to work both ways. Either way it was offensive
 
Wouldn't that come under "using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures" in the LOTG ? Hence, a red ?
It can, but it could also come under the 'shows dissent by words or action', Its a very very grey area!!! No winners here i'm afraid!!!
 
Both yellow or red are right depending on how you take it at the time. Thats a soft booking ref is not quite as common as But I got the ball ref, and in the back but it is one of those comments.
 
I strongly disagree with "walk away". There might be a case for strategically ignoring low level dissent at a distance but anything obvious one-to-one I think that is a rocky road.
Walking away can clarify which way you should go with a "borderline" card IMO. If you walk away and he follows to continue arguing, you can very easily sell a card. If he calms down, maybe you let him off with a close eye on him for the next 10.

Agree that if he's already dissented enough to deserve a card, you stand still and deal with it there and then.
 
"Argh you're sh*t" frustratedly
It sounds like this one
I also like @one 's idea of walking (or running) off!
Try to see it from the player's perspective. Last minute, tight game, frustrated, hot air. If the YC doesn't work, you can always put it on 'repeat chance'
 
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Multitude of ways of handling this
You could red card, yellow card, warn, pretend you never heard/misheard it, or even in right circumstances hit back with "your not such a great player yourself"
Based on how I read the op, I would not be showing a red here. For better or worse, am classing that as industrial language, esp in heat of moment, given the score, time etc. And that is not me making allowances for his outburst and deeming it as ok, its me stepping back and looking at the situation as a whole

To red card for that, for me, would render you dismissing many players per game for f/a etc...
 
Did he say it at such a volume as only you really heard it, or would it have been audible to the other players and spectators? If it is the former, then it is, at worst, a caution for dissent; if it is the latter, then OFFINABUS can be justified.
 
A red card has to be for OFFINABUS. A lot more factors involved in finding something offensive than just the words used. Just because he used the word 'sh!t' doesn't necessarily make it offensive enough for a red card. For example, if a player tell me 'you are an incompetent ref', no swear words used but for me it is more offensive than 'you are a sh!t ref'. Depending on other factors, neither is offensive enough for a send off for me.
 
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A red card has to be for OFFINABUS. A lot more factors involved in finding something offensive than just the words used. Just because he used the word 'sh!t' doesn't necessarily make it offensive enough for a red card. For example, if a player tell me 'you are an incompetent ref', no swear words used but for me it is more offensive than 'you are a sh!t ref'. Depending on other factors, neither is offensive enough for a send off for me.


I would congratulate most the sunday league players if they used a grand word such as incompetent to me!
 
Wasn't it in stoppage time ?
I meant more generally when it comes to the concept of walking away from a player who may be dissenting. But I still think you can use the "walking away test" to decide if the player needs a card in this case or not.
 
Being correct and being soft are not mutually exclusive. It's not a decision that could be considered technically wrong as the decision as to what is or isn't OFFINABUS is up to each referee but using the same principle, a referee that decided it was only dissent would also be acting within the framework of the Laws. As others have said, it's a YHTBT situation and nobody can say definitively that one or other decision is necessarily correct.
 
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