Abuse and disciplinary decisions impacting on retention of GAA referees

The GAA accepts that their response to the ill treatment of referees has to improve. Donal Smyth, Croke Park’s national match officials manager, was commenting on the University of Ulster study on the levels of verbal and physical abuse directed at referees and compared the Gaelic games experience with that of soccer in a number of countries.

He also believes that poor levels of vindication of refereeing decisions at committee level is having an impact on the retention of officials.

Failure to deal with abusive behaviour is one element of the disrespect shown to referees but another is the lack of follow-through on disciplinary issues. Last year one county reportedly overturned 70 per cent of red cards issued during a championship season.

“We are aware that we need to develop the whole area of support and this [study] gives us an insight into the issues involved,” explained Smyth.

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“Our structures wouldn’t be universally great at club level. I would be the point of contact nationally for club referees but if it gets this far, it’s a bad situation. There are a lot of things we could be doing better. Abuse is one side of the coin but what are the supports we could be providing?

“How do we get those structures right? Abuse is a part of it and the discipline system another but abuse has to be seen to be dealt with as well.”

The GAA collaborated in the gathering of information for the study, which was conducted by the UU School of Psychology in Coleraine. From the Gaelic games perspective, 438 match officials were surveyed for the study, conducted by psychologists Noel Brick, Gavin Breslin, Mark Shevlin, and Stephen Shannon.

Some of its headline findings make for depressing reading for the association: 94 per cent of referees reported they had been on the receiving end of verbal abuse and 23 experienced physical abuse, which puts them more at risk of such behaviour than their counterparts in other field sports, according to comparable studies.

Only Canadian ice hockey sees worse behaviour towards officials.

One detail stood out for Smyth: “A key finding for me was that the majority of the verbal abuse came from team officials [85 per cent of respondents reported such incidents]. So how do we deal with that and the clear difference between what’s acceptable and what isn’t? A bald report doesn’t always convey the nuances of the answers but Noel (Brick) is very interesting on the responses.”

[ Politicians seek to withhold funding if referee abuse continues ]

A persistent concern is the impact of this misbehaviour on the retention of referees with nearly 50 per cent agreeing that it makes them reconsider their involvement.

“There are lots of reasons referees walk away,” according to Smyth, “but until we get better at the administration of these things, we won’t have the fullest picture. The pressure on volunteers is enormous but are we doing everything we can?

“Okay, there’s a referees administrator in every county but have we functioning committees to support referees in education, development and when things go wrong?

“Until we get that right we won’t know what the real evidence on the ground is. We need further research and empirical evidence, which requires county boards to be proactive.

[ Letters, phone calls and abuse: What happens when a referee gets a big decision wrong? ]

“The reality is that we don’t keep sufficient records. Do county boards keep those figures? The answer is ‘no’. We have bare facts like so-and-so got a three-month suspension but we don’t get a picture of what happened.

“If a referee is abused and reports the matter, it should be dealt with transparently and the referees’ committee should know exactly why a decision was made. The referee is a stake holder in the disciplinary process.

“I’d love to hear a county chair stand up and say, ‘I want to hear from any referee who’s been abused in this county. I want him to report it to the CCC and it will be dealt with’. Will you get them to do that?”