By Christina Courquin, Barrister, Mountford Chambers

Abuse of Match Officials has been a rising problem for a number of years. Two high-profile rugby officials, Wayne Barnes and Tom Foley, stepped away from the sport following abuse on social media. Mr Barnes announced his retirement following his appearance at the World Cup final last year. He received numerous death threats and warnings, including threats to burn down his house and threats that his wife and children would be killed. Mr Foley announced his retirement one month after Mr Barnes, following what he described to be a ‘torrent of criticism and abuse online’. Football referee Anthony Taylor and his family were subjected to abuse as he boarded a flight home from the Europa League Final in Budapest in May 2023, with Roma fans being filmed to have hurled abuse and objects at him.  The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) said that it was appalled by the ‘unjustified and abhorrent’ abuse he faced.

However, abuse of Match Officials is not just confined to high-profile matches as it is also prevalent in grassroot games. Rhys Baldwin, a retired 25-year-old football referee, carried out an interview with the Daily Mail in November 2023, where he explained that he quit refereeing due to the abuse he received. The abuse he described included: “I’ve had knives pulled on me, I’ve had people try and get me fired from my job, I’ve had my car keyed. I’ve been stopped on the street and screamed at for a good 15 minutes in front of all of my friends”. He also described one incident where he was refereeing an under 12’s football match, where he handed a red card to a player, which led to the following: “His dad came onto the field after the full-time whistle, threatening to beat me up, told me he was going to kill me and said if there wasn’t enough witnesses around I’d already be dead”.

Clearly abuse of any form against Match Officials is unacceptable. Not only does it lead to poor retention of Match Officials but is a deterrent for those considering taking up a position as an Official. This article will explore the way two well established regulatory bodies are defining Match Official abuse and attempting to tackle the issue.

Football Association (“FA”)

The FA published their first Annual Grassroots Disciplinary Review on 19 December 2023, providing an insight into all misconduct types which were overseen by the FA’s Grassroots Discipline Team during the 2022/2023 season.

The review contained what could be considered as eye opening statistics. In the 2022 – 2023 season, there were 1451 serious offences against Match Officials. This included 72 allegations relating to an actual or attempted assaults, 291 allegations relating to physical contact or attempted physical contact and 988 allegations relating to threats.

The review confirmed the extension of the ‘Body Cam’ trial, stating: “since the trial began, there have been no allegations of misconduct against a match official, by the match officials who wear the cameras. On that basis, we are looking to expand the pilot even further to create a greater sample size to prove the concept that match officials wearing body worn cameras, does indeed reduce misconduct and where it doesn’t prevent misconduct, it gives greater evidence to the County Football Association when bringing disciplinary proceedings”.

Further, the review introduced point deductions for teams across the grassroots game from the start of the 2023/2024 season, if their players or coaches committed repeated offences of serious misconduct. Deductions range from 3 to 12 points depending on the number of breaches within 12 months of the team’s first offence and the severity of the case(s).

The crack down on Match Official abuse can be seen in the FA’s publishing of disciplinary cases. On 26^th January 2024, a manager at Forest Green Rovers was suspended from.4 matches and fined £1500.00 for language towards a Match Official. In the hearing it was stated “that there had been a particular drive and focus this season in trying to stamp out this kind of behaviour towards Match Officials which is completely unacceptable, whether the behaviour was of a player or manager”.

Rugby Football Union (“RFU”)

The RFU has recognised that Match Official abuse can take a number of different forms and that eradicating such abuse is essential to maintaining the game’s ethos and core values. A Match Official survey was conducted in 2022 and 2023, which revealed that 49% of Match Officials were abused in the previous season. David Barnes, Head of Discipline at the RFU, said: “We’ve noticed in recent years, since coming out of Covid, that levels of abuse were at a level where we needed to take action”.

On 1 January 2024, the RFU Head of Judiciary, Richard Whittam KC, issued guidance to all disciplinary panels that any instance of Match Official abuse would be subject to mandatory aggravation of any sanction by a set number of weeks depending on the level of the offence. Statistics proved that 18% of all disciplinary cases were related to Match Official abuse.

The RFU disciplinary process has five distinct categories of Match Official abuse, each within their own range of available disciplinary sanctions. All five categories of ‘on field’ Match Official abuse are catered for by Law 9.28 of the World Rugby Laws of the Game. The categories are laid out in the document ‘Match Official Abuse – A Guide for Referees’ and as follows:

1. Disrespecting the authority of the Match Official

This is referred to as ‘dissent’ rather than abuse. The difference is that it involves a questioning of a decision. Comments such as “Are you fucking serious?”, or “Are you having a laugh” would count as disrespecting the authority of the Match Official.  The discipline statistics from surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 showed that the largest category of offences against match officials involved dissent.

2. Verbal abuse

Abuse is considered verbal abuse when the offender uses ‘Foul or offensive language in comments aimed directly at the Match Official’. Examples include “You’re a cheat”, or “You’re fucking pathetic”.

3. Using threatening actions or words towards Match Officials

This occurs where a specific threat is made to the Match Official either verbally or by physical gesture, but there is no physical contact made. Examples given include “I’m going to punch your lights out”.

4. Making physical contact with a Match Official

This is referred to as ‘making incidental contact with a Match Official’ and is when there is contact which is more than merely accidental. Examples given include a player moving the referee out of the ay at. A breakdown or make a tackle. A referee may initially apologise for their positioning, but this does not prevent a charge being issued on review.

5. Physical abuse of a Match Official

This would be when the offender intentionally makes physical contact with the Match Official. They would need to make physical contact which could not be categorised as merely reckless, careless or purely accidental.

 Sanctions

RFU Regulation 19, Discipline (Appendix 2) sets out the sanction entry points. There are three entry points in total, ‘Low-end’, ‘Mid-range’ and ‘Top-end’, in order to provide an additional deterrent. From 1 January 2024, any offence contrary to Law 9.28 is aggravated in accordance with RFU Regulation 19.11.3(b) as follows:

• Low-end, by 2 weeks
• Mid-range, by 3 weeks
• Top-end (whatever starting point is determined), by 4 weeks.

Since the increase in sanctions came into place, there has been a noticeable crackdown on abuse. England player, Poppy Cleall, received a two-match ban and missed the Women’s Six Nations opener against Italy for swearing at a referee. High Wycombe RFC received a 2-match ban for all adult male senior teams (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd league/cup games) from the start of 2024-2025 season, with an 8 match ban suspended for the season 2024-2025 due to spectator abuse. The club was also required to put measures in place to prevent Match Official Abuse from happening again.

 It is noticeable that a number of rugby clubs have also acknowledged the attempt to crack down on escalating Match Official abuse. Examples include Beverley RUFC, who published a club statement on Match Official abuse, saying “Beverly RUFC would like to make It very clear to all players, coaches, supporters, parents and guests from 1^st XV to the U6s, that any behaviour likely to be construed as Match Official Abuse will not be tolerated by the club”. Burntwood Rugby Club issued a message on 23^rd January 2024 addressing Match Official abuse and said as follows: “As a club, we must all do better! To enforce this, we have made the difficult decision to introduce pitch side warnings and potential bans for anyone deemed to be addressing a match official in an inappropriate manner”.

Conclusion

The FA and the RFU are clearly paving the way to establish that Match Official abuse is unacceptable and will be taken seriously by the regulators. It will be interesting to see a comparison of statistics at the end of the 2024 season, to analyse whether stronger sanctions have acted as a deterrent to abuse and whether there has been an improvement on the retention and recruitment of Match Officials.

Christina Courquin, Barrister, Mountford Chambers