ThePressBox Can everyone please stop abusing our GAA referees?
Report highlights ongoing problem facing Sligo refs
THE BOOKLET for this year’s Sligo GAA Convention – which took place on Tuesday of this week at the Clayton Hotel – makes for interesting reading.
Maybe not quite as interesting as the work of horror writers Graham Masterton and Stephen King, poet Philip Larkin or soccer writer Jonathan Wilson (who churns out brilliant stuff for The Guardian), but still interesting enough.
Two vital units of Sligo GAA are its referees and the Competitions Control Committee (CCC). It is a thankless task to organise competitions, dish out sanctions and it is no easier to be a referee these days (when there are too many refs on the terraces and even more online). Fergus Leonard, Sligo GAA’s CCC secretary, presented an overview of this committee’s activities.
When it comes to discipline, thankfully there were no ‘Category V’ offences reported. Category V offences cover minor physical interference (e.g. laying a hand on, pushing, pulling or jostling) with a referee, umpire, linesman or sideline official. Instances of threatening language and/or threatening or abusive con- duct to a referee, umpire, linesman or sideline official are deemed Category V. I’m led to believe that there was at least one Category V occurence this year, but if it wasn’t reported then it wasn’t reported. No Category V acts either this year or last year? So far so good. We had, according to Leonard’s report, five cases of Category IV and IVa infractions.
Category IV, for those who don’t have the GAA’s official guide in front of them, features such hits as ‘Striking or attempting to strike with the head’, ‘Striking with hurley, either with force or causing injury’, ‘Attempting to strike with hurley, with force’, ‘Kicking, either with force or causing injury’, ‘Attempting to kick, with force’, ‘Stamping’, ‘Inflicting injury recklessly by means other than those stated above’, ‘Any type of assault on an opposing team official’, ‘An act by deed, word or gesture of a racist, sectarian or anti-inclusion/ diversity nature’.
REF AT WORK: Gus Chapman,
is a leading referee in both GAA and LGFA circles.
Ah, such a lovely list. Especially where there are attempts to strike or kick ‘with force’. But this isn’t a Mixed Martial Arts checklist.
Those were the worst but there there were still 61 incidents in Category III (straight red card offences), at least a reduction of 10 from last year.
Category III is the wonderful world of striking or attempting to strike with arm, elbow, hand or knee; striking or attempting to strike with a hurley, with minimal force; kicking or attempting to kick, with minimal force; behaving in any way which is dangerous to an opponents, including deliberately pulling on or taking hold of a faceguard or any part of an opponent’s helmet (in hurling); spitting at an opponents; contributing to a melee; abusive language towards a referee, umpire, linesman or sideline official.
There were 65 situations where a player was sent off due to two bookings, Category I, and a team official was dismissed (Category Ia). This is an increase on last year’s total of 54. Here’s another juicy one – Category IIa, verbal abuse to officials from a team official. This happened 10 times in 2023 and nine times in 2022.
Black card offences (Category II, generally cynical behaviour) were not included in Leonard’s summary. So, why the fascination, you ask, with the Competitions Control Committee’s 143 occasions of disciplinary action after receiving and reviewing referees’ reports?
The Competitions Control Committee shouldn’t have to be dealing with half of this nonsense just as the handful of very good referees that are in this county shouldn’t have to put up with ongoing verbal abuse from players, managements and know-it-alls on the terraces.
It is understandable that there will be black cards issued as well as yellow cards and, obviously, red cards on foot of second yellow cards.
But the verbal abuse, the attempts to kick/strike (with force)? Needless. Unwarranted. Unneccessary. Players/managers/fans might think they are taking a stand against The Worst Refereeing Decision In The World each time they unleash an invective towards a match official.
But they are only making things worse for themselves and their team and making the referee, who is being barked at, feel like a lonely outcast on a shrinking treeless island without WiFi. This isn’t just me having a rant at this ongoing cancer. Fergus Leonard, secretary of the CCC, is succint in his summary: “Sadly, for the third year in-a-row, the prevalence of abuse of match officials is far too high.
“The CCC would ask delegates to bring the message back to your clubs that abuse of officials is totally unjustified.”
YES, we need excellent referees. And we need more referees who are excellent. I’m sure all of Sligo GAA’s referees want to be better. But being constantly shouted at as they go about their business only makes people bitter, not better.
I’ve been at games where the bleating from certain spectators has been both irritating and futile.
The irony is that if these individuals were asked to immediately step onto the pitch, take the whistle and make better calls they simply wouldn’t be able to (not without completing courses and building up game experience of being an actual referee). Even the best refs get it wrong. Still, I would love to look forward to a season of GAA and LGFA games where the only referee is the actual official match official, not the would-be refs in the crowd.
Also, can managers/selectors/ backroom team folk stop with the guff of giving out during games. No amount of shouting will change a referee’s mind. Try shouting at the tide in order to make it turn or howl at the moon for it to become blue. Same outcomes.
Clubs are also guilty of appealing sanctions. Let’s say a player (we’ll call him Kicker O’Kickery) is found guilty of a Category IV offence – ‘kicking, either with force or causing injury’. His club, Refs Are Wrong
Kickhams, hotly dispute the red card. “Kicker isn’t that sort of player. He never kicked out of turn in his life. He only kicks the ball. We have footage to prove it,” they say, adding that they frown upon such acts of tricksy kickishness on the pitch. There can be decisions that are harsh, where the sanctions should be reduced, but where our chap Kicker O’Kickery is guilty, why not just bite the bullet, take the punishment, and move on? I fear that the report in 2024 from the secretary of the Sligo GAA Competitions Control Committee will have similar statistics as this year’s summary. We can only hope that there are no Category V incidences, as was the case this year (thankfully) and fewer infractions involving violence and verbals. Unfortunately, it may take years to change people’s attitudes. Just as is the case with the Climate Crisis and the hundred other ills of this world. Some GAA fans may never change their outlook. According to them the poor ref is either very wrong or very f **king wrong. I’m reminded of the story of a True Gael, who, having just witnessed an assault on a referee, replied: “Sure he was having a bad game anyway.”
Let’s make 2024 the year when we stop shouting at referees.