Salford referee calls for more bodycams and more support to tackle abuse

A Salford-based football referee has called for more support from governing bodies to tackle abuse from players, managers and spectators.

This comes following a questionnaire that took responses from more than 900 referees about verbal and physical abuse when officiating. The responses were published on the BBC Sport and read as followed.

The sheer quantity of referees who feel threatened is a worrying statistic with many of the grassroots referees being youth referees in and around the age of 18.

Chairman of the University of Salford football club, Ben Larnach, believes that verbal abuse from the sidelines alone won’t be enough to deter all referees.

He said:”I think most referees know what they’re getting themselves into regarding football players and spectators, but certainly with young referees they may be less prepared to deal with it than more experienced officials.”

Since the release of the statistics many grassroots referees have called for bodycams to be employed at lower levels to help combat and capture abuse.

Larnach believes that the change needs to come from education within the game. He said: “I think the laws of the game need to be recognised by all, I think if you know the rules you can see why decisions have been made and are less likely to question the referee.”