Aggression towards referees in amateur football in Spain: A loglinear approach

Abstract

Aggressive behavior towards football referees is becoming increasingly common, and as a result we are getting used to it and coming to see it as an inevitable and intrinsic element of football matches. Spectators, players and coaches are all prone to take this view. This article studies how the types of aggression shown by these three groups towards the referee are related to one another, and how they are perceived by the referee, in amateur football. For this purpose, the phenomenon was assessed, using an ad-hoc form, both by an expert and by the referee, in 119 regional and youth football matches in the city of Valencia and surrounding municipalities. We analysed the data using a loglinear model, which enabled us to establish that from the referee's perspective pairs of the above-mentioned groups influenced each other regardless of the attitude of the third group. On the other hand, departing from the traditional idea that aggressive behaviour by one of the groups determines the behaviour of the other two, the analysis of the expert's opinions on the attitudes of the three groups led us to a model in which their respective actions were independent of one another.