Swearing, intimidation: Young refs copping ‘unaccepable’ abuse

SBA has noticed an increase in “unacceptable behavior” towards their referees, 80 per cent of which are under the age of 18.

The rise in incidents – reported from referees and opposition spectators – has been particularly prevalent in junior games which is concerning for SBA.

Coaches and players have hurled abuse at officiators and in some cases spectators have approached referees during breaks to question their decisions.

It has forced some budding referees to cut down their hours, with a ‘green whistle’ initiative to highlight referees under 18 doing little to stymie abuse.

SBA president Leon Sayers implored coaches, players and parents to show more respect to referees.

“It doesn’t seem to matter whether they have a green lanyard on them or not, some people’s behavior has just not been unacceptable lately,” Sayers said.

“So we are just taking steps to remind the community, coaches, players and parents that are watching games that the referees are there to do a job and they need to accept the decisions, good or bad, that are made during games.

“We have had some refs who have reduced their hours with us and will only ref certain age groups and don’t like reffing other age groups just purely and simply because of the behavior they have experienced recently

“It can be intimidating for refs so when we do get refs that become a bit more confident and can really handle games and start to develop, the last thing we need is them being subjected to a workplace that isn’t showing the right standards towards them and respect.”

SBA said the main examples of abuse they are seeing are: yelling at the referees from the sidelines; abusive language towards referees; team managers and spectators approaching referees on the court during breaks in games; and players/coaches not complying with game officials requests.

Some have already been caught red-handed.

“We also record some games for coaching purposes for our referees and we can hear some of the behavior on some of those recordings as well,” Sayers said.